WHAT  I  BELIE 

y     AND  WHY 


WILLIAM  HAYES  W 


liHnnnllllmHmiillilil! 


IHl!! 


iiiiili 


iiiiiiiiiiii 


[MSI!! 


pi 


BR  121  .W27  1915 

Ward,  William  Hayes,  1835 

1916, 
What  I  believe  and  why 


WHAT    I    BELIEVE 
AND    WHY 


WHAT  1  BELIEVE 
AND  WHY 


V 


W' 


^ 


(vjnv'^1  ■>."r.''- 


h: 


BY 


WILLIAM  HAYES  WARD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

191S 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1915 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 3 

CHAPTER 

I.     The  Data  for  Belief      ...  11 

II.     Ether,  Matter,  and  Mind  .      .  25 

III.  Had  the  Universe  a  Beginning  ?  39 

IV.  The  Stellar  Universe — Had  It 

A  Cause  ? 48 

V.    The  Atomic  Constitution  of  the 

Universe 61 

VI.     The  Puzzle   of  the  Infinite    .  72 

VII.     A  Universe  Fitted  for  Life     .  75 

VIII.     The  Mystery  of  Life      ...  81 

IX.     Foresight  in  Evolution       .      .  97 

X.     Nature's  Preparation  for  Man  114 

XI.     Reason  and  Soul 128 

XII.     The  Problem  of  Instinct     .      .  137 

V 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIII.  The  Direct  Vision  of  God  .      .  152 

XIV.  How  to  Think  of  God    .      .      .  164 
XV.  Duty  and  Duties 177 

XVI.  Duties  Between  Man  and  Man  186 

XVII.  Essentials  and  Non-Essentials 

in  Religion 197 

XVIII.  The  Hebrew  Scriptures       .      .  211 

XIX.  The  Christian  Scriptures    .      .232 

XX.  The  Inspiration  of  the  Scrip- 
tures      248 

XXI.  Jesus  the  Christ 263 

XXII.  The  Future  Life 280 

XXIII.  The  Essence  of  Christianity  .  301 

XXIV.  The  Sum  of  the  Whole  Matter  321 


WHAT  I   BELIEVE 
AND  WHY 


INTRODUCTION 

AS  children  we  learn  by  being  told.  Our  be- 
liefs must  be  taken  on  the  authority  of 
parents  and  teachers.  It  is  only  with  the 
access  of  years  that  reason  develops  far  enough 
so  that  we  seek  the  basis  of  accepted  beliefs,  that 
we  confirm  them  or  doubt  or  disbelieve.  Many 
beliefs  we  have  to  take  all  our  lives  on  the  testi- 
mony of  others.  Travellers  have  told  us  of  the 
city  of  Timbuktu,  and  we  do  not  doubt  its  exist- 
ence. We  have  seen  it  in  the  atlas,  and  that  is 
enough.  A  hardy  explorer  has  reached,  or  says 
he  has,  the  South  Pole,  and  we  do  not,  or  cannot, 
prove  or  disbelieve  his  claim,  but  we  accept  it. 
A  multitude  of  other  beliefs  our  own  observation 
or  reason  confirms,  and  some  it  denies. 

Not  all  our  beliefs  accepted  from  parents  or 
teachers  can  we  easily  test  in  any  concrete  way 
with  eyes  and  ears.  They  are  beliefs  or  opinions 
relating  to  matters  of  political  wisdom,  of  social 
welfare,  of  religious  creed  and  duty.  These  we 
have  inherited  and  are  very  likely  to  hold  because 
inherited,  without  seeking  to  test  them.  We  have 
a  prejudice  in  their  favor,  and  we  do  not  care  to 
examine  the  grounds  of  our  prejudice,  or  we  have 

3 


4  WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

not  time  or  energy  or  opportunity  to  make  the 
investigation.  We  still  listen  to  those  who  assert 
what  we  have  been  taught,  and  do  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  hear  the  other  side.  We  may  even 
give  study  to  the  subject,  but  only  by  reading  the 
arguments  on  our  own  side,  that  we  may  strengthen 
our  own  defenses.  Thus  a  man's  mind  may  in 
early  life  lose  the  power  of  expansion,  may  be 
anchylosed  like  the  sutures  of  the  skull,  so  that 
further  growth  is  impossible. 

Yet  even  if  this  is  not  the  case,  if  the  mind  is 
kept  open  to  new  views  of  truth,  it  is  a  fact  often 
observed  that  changes  of  view  come  gradually 
and  insensibly.  The  bearings  of  facts  that  seemed 
at  the  time  insignificant,  or  a  number  of  them, 
only  after  a  period  of  gestation  demand  atten- 
tion. We  find  to  our  surprise  that  truths  we 
thought  certain  become  less  certain,  perhaps  quite 
doubtful.  Our  attitude  on  living  questions  has 
insensibly  changed.  Socialism  does  not  seem  as 
impossible  as  it  did,  nor  the  devil  quite  as  per- 
sonal. And  still,  in  the  stress  of  daily  work,  we 
do  not  take  the  time,  or  have  not  the  energy,  to 
draw  a  fresh  map  of  our  beliefs;  or  we  feel  a 
certain  hesitancy  or  fear  about  charting  them, 
because  we  are  comfortable  as  we  are,  or  not 
uncomfortable,  and  the  definite  recognition  of  a 
change  of  belief  would  be  disturbing. 

Something  like  this  has  been  my  attitude  to- 
ward the  great  questions  of  religion ;    and  yet  for 


INTRODUCTION  5 

many  years  I  have  felt  it  my  duty,  when  I  could, 
or  whether  I  could  or  not,  to  investigate  so  far 
as  I  might,  the  grounds  of  my  beliefs  as  to  God 
and  Scripture  and  Christ  and  worship  and  duty. 
In  my  day,  knowledge  in  science,  in  philosophy, 
in  archaeology,  in  criticism  has  made  it  possible 
to  recast  the  grounds  of  one's  religious  belief; 
and  even  one  who,  like  myself,  has  not  been  able 
to  give  his  time  professionally  to  these  studies 
will  yet  have  caught  the  currents  and  been  borne 
on  the  drift  of  them,  and  may  be  sufficiently 
informed  generally,  if  not  critically  and  at  first- 
hand, to  be  at  liberty  to  make  his  own  judgments 
and  draw  his  own  conclusions.  This  is  what  I 
have  long  resolved  to  do,  just  for  my  own  satis- 
faction, and,  possibly,  to  bring  useful  suggestions 
to  others  who  may  feel  the  same  desire  to  orient 
their  faith  and  know  what  they  believe. 

May  I  be  allowed  to  say  that  I  was  fortunate 
in  having  inherited  an  interest  in  religious  ques- 
tions? For  three  generations  before  me  my  lin- 
eal ancestors  had  been  New  England  ministers. 
My  father's  library  was  rich  in  theological  works, 
as  well  as  works  in  philosophy,  and  these  he  en- 
couraged me  to  read  in  my  younger  teens,  Ed- 
wards, father  and  son,  Hopkins,  Bellamy,  Em- 
mons, and  Dwight,  while  Calmet's  ''Dictionary 
of  the  Bible,"  and  Home's  ''Introduction"  were 
familiar  to  me.  For  his  day,  my  father  was  a 
liberal  in  theology,  not  a  Unitarian,  although  his 


6  WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

library  contained,  and  I  read,  on  both  sides  the 
discussions  of  Woods  and  Ware  and  Stuart.  My 
father  was  a  disciple  of  the  newer  theology  of 
Emmons  and  N.  W.  Taylor,  and  was  an  admirer 
of  Park  in  his  polemics  with  Hodge.  I  was  thus 
taught  early  not  to  accept  an  old  faith  unless  it 
was  proved  true,  and  yet  to  be  hospitable  to  new 
truths  that  might  break  out  of  God's  holy  Word. 
In  those  days  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  was 
not  much  questioned,  except  by  ''infidels,"  and 
yet  we  were  beginning  to  doubt  whether  the  Bible 
was  written  to  teach  us  science.  Hugh  Miller  and 
Edward  Hitchcock  were  telling  us  that  geology 
might  bring  us  a  fresh  interpretation  of  the  six 
days  of  creation. 

I  think  my  first  unrecognized  doubt  as  to  the 
historical  certitude  of  the  Bible  came  in  the  three 
years  between  the  ages  of  six  and  nine,  during 
which  my  father  required  me  to  read  the  Bible 
through  in  Hebrew,  he  being  my  teacher.  He 
believed,  I  am  glad  to  say,  that  Hebrew  was  an 
easier  language  to  learn  than  Greek  or  Latin, 
and  with  three  years  for  each,  and  in  this  reverse 
order,  he  required  me  to  read  the  whole  Bible  in 
the  original  tongues,  with  the  Old  Testament  also 
in  Greek  and  the  New  in  Hebrew,  and  both  in 
Latin.  It  was  during  those  years  given  to  He- 
brew, certainly  not  much  later,  that  I  learned 
from  my  Gesenius's  ''Lexicon"  that  Babel  in 
Arabic  means  the  gate  of  God,  Bab -II,  and  not 


INTRODUCTION  7 

confusion,  as  the  Genesis  story  tells  us.  I  knew 
that  Arabic  was  allied  to  Hebrew,  and  the  deriva- 
tion in  the  Arabic  seemed  more  natural  than  one 
which  came  from  balal,  to  confound.  The  doubt 
did  not  germinate  very  much,  but  it  remained, 
and  it  was  somewhat  confirmed  when  I  was  re- 
quired to  read  Stuart's  "Commentary  on  Daniel," 
which  discussed  questions  of  historicity,  not 
wholly  after  the  conservative  way.  When  my 
father  taught  his  older  children  the  Assembly's 
"Shorter  Catechism,"  he  took  great  pains,  in  a 
sort  of  Sunday  evening  lectures,  to  show  us  why 
the  answers  were  true,  and  at  times  why  they 
were  not  true.  In  this  very  favorable  atmosphere 
of  instruction  I  was  taught  to  keep  the  sutures 
of  the  mind  open  and  free,  not  hastily  to  take  new 
conjectures,  but  yet  hospitable  to  their  considera- 
tion, as  was  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  great  re- 
former of  New  England  theology,  one  of  whose 
resolutions,  written  in  his  boyhood,  reads: 

I  observe  that  old  men  seldom  have  any  advantage 
of  new  discoveries  because  these  are  apart  from  a  way 
of  thinking  they  have  been  so  long  used  to:  Resolved,  if  I 
ever  live  to  years  that  I  will  be  impartial  to  hear  the  rea- 
sons of  all  pretended  discoveries,  and  receive  them  if 
rational,  how  long  soever  I  have  been  used  to  another 
way  of  thinking. 

In  this  way  have  I  taken  the  liberty,  for  which 
perhaps  I  ought  to  ask  pardon,  to  give  a  personal 


8  WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

explanation  of  the  occasion  for  this  study,  and 
for  the  personal  character  of  its  title,  ''What  I 
Believe  and  Why,"  and  for  the  personal  element 
which  may  appear  in  the  following  discussions. 
I  would  not  impose  my  conclusions  on  the  reader, 
but  I  would  suggest  to  him  the  reasons  for  my 
own  more  or  less  certain  faith. 

If  one  wishes  to  know  definitely  what  he  be- 
lieves indefinitely,  and  why  he  should  believe  it, 
how  shall  he  begin?  He  should  purge  his  mind 
of  all  prejudice,  and  even  discharge  it  of  all  pre- 
conceptions and  even  beliefs,  and  begin  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  knowledge,  at  least  on  all  religious 
and  even  ethical  matters,  much  after  the  method 
of  what  is  called  the  Cartesian  Doubt,  which,  in 
philosophy,  begins  at  the  very  beginning,  with 
the  recognition  only  of  personal  consciousness. 
That  is,  he  should  put  behind  him,  for  the  nonce, 
any  impression  of  belief,  or  disbelief,  in  God  or 
gods  or  sacred  books,  and  of  obligations  or  dis- 
tinctions of  right  and  wrong.  The  first  assump- 
tions will  be  of  one's  own  natural  powers,  and  one's 
own  consciousness  and  one's  own  perceptions  as 
they  take  hold  of  the  outside  world ;  and  he  may 
then  accept  those  results  of  science  that  are  ac- 
cepted by  all  men  of  science.  Thus  the  facts  of 
chemistry,  the  geological  history  of  the  earth,  the 
nature  of  the  solar  system  and  the  stars,  and  all 
the  world  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  with  the 
working  of  human  psychology,  all  these  will  be 


INTRODUCTION  9 

the  basal  data  for  one's  conclusions  as  to  religious 
faith. 

For  the  first  question  that  will  come  to  us  is: 
What  is  the  basis  for  natural  theology  ?  Do  we 
believe  in  a  God  ?  To  be  sure,  theology  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  religion.  Religion  has 
to  do  with  otu  duties  toward  God,  or  gods,  if 
such  there  be;  while  theology  is  the  philosophy 
which  classifies  and  supports  our  beliefs,  and  be- 
liefs only.  Religion  has  to  do  with  obedient  ser- 
vice to  a  superior  Power,  and  has  its  object  in 
that  Being;  while  theology  has  its  end  and  ob- 
ject in  one's  self,  in  satisfying  intellectually  one's 
own  craving  for  knowledge.  Yet  because  one 
cannot  experience  obedience  or  reverence  toward 
God  until  one  has  an  intellectual  and  theologic 
belief  in  God,  because  belief  in  God  so  requires 
religious  relations  toward  Him,  therefore  we  some- 
what loosely  call  our  beliefs,  our  theology,  relig- 
ious, while  in  fact  the  mere  correct  belief  in  God 
is  no  more  religious  in  itself  than  belief  in  a  devil 
or  a  Chinese  dragon  or  a  sea  serpent. 

But  this  anticipates  what  must  come  later. 
For  the  present,  we  may  dismiss  Bible  and  God, 
and  ask  of  nature  about  us  the  primary  question 
in  natural  religion :  Is  there  a  God  ?  Later,  if 
after  going  forward  and  backward  we  should  find 
Him,  the  related  duties  will  need  consideration; 
and  after  that  we  may  inquire  what  are  the  evi- 
dences of  revelation,  and  what  its  contents,  and 


lo        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

whether  death  ends  life.  For  the  present  we  are 
concerned  with  the  data  which  will  give  or  sug- 
gest a  conclusion  on  the  great  question  of  Theism. 
This  is  more  than  half  the  quest. 


CHAPTER   I 
THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF 

I  HAVE  said  that  if  I  want  to  know  truly  what 
I  ought  to  believe  about  religion  I  must  first 
discharge  myself  of  all  prepossessions  and 
begin  at  the  beginning.  That  beginning  is  that 
I  must  trust  the  validity  of  my  own  consciousness 
of  myself.  I  am,  and  I  am  conscious  of  myself 
in  my  moods  of  action  and  feeling.  I,  as  nomina- 
tive case,  subject,  objectify  myself  as  objective 
case,  object,  and  I  declare  me  to  exist — under 
these  moods.  I  cannot  doubt  the  fact.  It  is  a 
real  existence,  even  if  it  be  called  an  illusion,  a 
dream,  for  the  dream,  or  illusion,  exists,  and  so 
does  whatever  may  be  imder  that  dream  or  illu- 
sion. I  am,  I  am,  I,  the  substantive  I,  and  I 
cannot  but  believe  in  the  substantial  me. 

Next  comes  the  recognition  of  the  moods  under 
which  I  exist,  the  thinkings,  feelings,  doings;  the 
sensations,  the  perceptions.  I  recognize  that  as 
a  thinking,  feeling  being  I  am  a  continuous  mind, 
and  also  that  I  am,  or  have  a  body.  By  my 
senses  I  cannot  but  be  convinced  that  there  is 
also  something  external  even  to  my  own  body, 
other  bodies,  animate  and  inanimate.     I  appre- 

II 


12        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

hend  them  by  five  senses.  I  am  convinced  that 
they  are  not  a  subjective  illusion.  To  be  sure,  I 
am  familiar  with  what  seem  for  a  moment  real 
objects  seen,  which  are  illusions,  as  in  dreaming 
and  in  insanity;  but  through  the  concurrence  of 
the  senses,  in  the  tests  of  my  waking  hours,  I 
am  compelled  to  believe  these  persons  and  things 
not  me  to  be  real  existences,  as  real  as  I  am  my- 
self. I  conclude  that  I  am  not  the  mere  spinner 
of  unsubstantial  dreams,  solipsissimus  amid  the 
vacant  spaces  which  I  fill  with  empty  shadows, 
fancying  them  solid  realities.  I  live  and  move 
with  actual  objective  persons  and  things,  of  which 
I  am  unus  inter  pares  et  impares  permultos,  one 
among  multitudinous  differing  and  separate  reali- 
ties. No  sane  person,  not  a  philosopher,  can  be- 
lieve everything  to  be  subjective  imagination. 

My  personal  sensations  give  me  the  idea  of 
time,  learned  through  the  succession  of  sensa- 
tions; and  my  organs  of  feeling  and  sight  give 
me  the  idea  of  space.  I  see  myself  existing  in  the 
moving  current  of  time,  and  I  see  the  world  about 
me  existing  in  space.  My  faculties  give  no  limit, 
and  they  seem  to  deny  any  limit,  to  space  and 
time.  I  cannot  imagine  a  beginning  to  time  or 
a  boundary  to  space,  while  equally  the  concep- 
tion of  time  and  space  as  infinite  is  beyond  my 
comprehension,  but  the  fact  is  simple  and  easy  to 
understand.  Space  and  time  are  diverse  quid- 
dities.    Space  is  universal  and  static,  static  be- 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  13 

cause  universal.  It  rests  because  there  is  nowhere 
to  which  it  can  move.  It  occupies  the  all.  It  is 
the  great  all-comprehensive  Brahm  in  which  all 
things  exist.  Matter  may  be  in  it  here  or  there, 
and  ether  may  be  in  it  everywhere,  while  space 
is  the  condition  of  their  existence.  But  time  is 
present,  passing,  new.  It  was,  it  will  be,  it  now 
is  only  in  the  flux  of  the  moment,  for  it  is  of  its 
essence  to  be  impermanent.  It  moves  us  in  its 
vast  sweep  of  current,  bearing  all  things  with  it. 
So  out  of  that  which  no  longer  is  time  covers 
the  whole  of  absolute  space,  and  moves  mightily 
in  a  great  tidal  ocean  that  knows  no  refluence. 
Space  and  time  cannot  be  thought  away  as  cate- 
gories of  imagination;  they  are  facts,  the  condi- 
tions of  all  existence.  Everything  that  is,  has 
its  limit  in  space,  and  is  borne  along  by  the 
stream  of  time. 

I  cannot  admit  any  argument  against  the  in- 
finity of  time  and  space,  and  so  against  any  con- 
clusions as  to  the  existence  from  all  eternity  of 
included  matter  or  mind,  drawn  from  any  assump- 
tion that  beyond  our  possible  knowledge  there 
may  be  transcendent  relations  of  time  or  space 
such  as  would  vitiate  any  conclusions  one  might 
draw  from  them  as  we  know  them.  Mathema- 
ticians and  philosophers  amuse  themselves,  for 
example,  in  talking  of  the  Absolute,  which  has 
no  limiting  relations,  or  they  fancy  space  of  more 
than  the  three  dimensions  which  we  know  as  in- 


14        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

eluding  all  its  possible  relations.  They  imagine 
an  insect  so  far  flattened  down  as  to  have  no 
upper  and  under  side,  and  which,  given  a  mind, 
could  have  no  suspicion  that  there  was  any  other 
than  the  two  dimensions  of  length  and  breadth 
in  which  it  lived;  and  they  then  suggest  that  we 
may  be  such  limited  creatures  knowing  only  the 
three  dimensions  familiar  to  us,  while  there  may 
be  others  familiar  to  higher  minds.  They  tell  us 
that  by  adding  a  fourth  or  fifth  dimension  the 
present  relations  of  space,  as  known  to  us,  would 
be  so  changed  that  any  present  impossibility 
might  become  possible,  and  all  knowledge  and  all 
conclusions  annulled.  So  of  time,  they  conceive 
a  Higher  Being  who  ' 'views  all  things  at  one  view,'* 
to  whom  there  is  no  before  or  after,  but  only  a 
present  now,  and  who  thus  can  know  all  things 
past  and  future,  because  all  time  is  ever  present 
to  him;  and  they  thus  predicate  as  philosophy 
what  the  familiar  hymn  gives  as  poetry: 

"Eternity,  with  all  its  years, 
Stands  present  in  thy  view; 
To  thee  there's  nothing  old  appears. 
Great  God,  there's  nothing  new." 

A  legitimate  figure  of  speech  in  poetry  cannot  so 
easily  be  transferred  to  philosophy.  When  we 
know  that  time  and  space  are  actualities  we  can- 
not blow  them  out  with  a  whiff  of  fancy,  as  if  a 
dream.     To  explain   difficulties  by  denying  the 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  15 

validity  of  reason  is  intellectual  suicide — we  might 
as  well  bury  all  philosophy  and  suppress  at  once 
all  reason  if  we  are  to  explain  our  ignorance  by 
the  denial  of  our  knowledge.  An  Absolute  which 
is  limited  neither  by  time  nor  space  is  imthink- 
able  to  us,  and  we  must  think  of  it  as  impossible 
to  God.  Any  being  however  supreme  who  exists 
must  exist  in  the  categories  of  time  and  space, 
which  are  quite  as  necessary  as  he  is  himself. 
To  assume  and  argue  otherwise  is  to  be,  like 
Milton's  devils,  '4n  endless  mazes  lost." 

Next  I  begin  to  examine  the  not-me.  I  find 
that  about  me  is  the  world,  and  I  discover  that 
the  earth  is  a  part  of  the  solar  system,  and  that 
the  sun  with  its  satellites  is  but  one  in  a  vast 
congeries  of  stars  which  are  numberless  suns  like 
our  own;  some  of  which  we  know  have  satellites 
like  ours.  I  then  begin  to  ask  what  is  their  his- 
tory, their  origin,  and  their  future. 

I  see  that  this  earth  I  live  in  is  a  round  ball, 
made  of  less  than  a  hundred  elements,  and  then 
I  ask  if  these  discrete  elements  are  really  simple, 
indivisible,  and  essentially  permanent,  and  I  am 
informed  that  they  are  probably  each  composed 
of  a  definite  number  of  subatoms,  which  may, 
or  may  not  be  the  ultimate  corpuscle  or  cor- 
puscles. Beyond  that  I  cannot  go.  I  am  not 
yet  informed  whether  these  subatoms  are  solid, 
impenetrable  ultimates,  or  are  movements,  whorls, 
vortices  in  a  primum  mobile  which  physicists  call 


1 6        WHAT  I  BELIEVE   AND  WHY 

ether.  There  I  must  leave  the  matter  for  the 
moment. 

Then  I  study  the  earth  I  Hve  in  to  learn  its 
history.  I  find  it  has  had  a  succession  of  ages, 
that  it  has  possessed  successive  stages  of  con- 
tinental development.  It  was  once  the  scene  of 
vast  paroxysmal  upheavals,  under  the  influence 
of  internal  forces  which  have  gradually  dimin- 
ished in  activity.  The  earth  was  once  much 
hotter  than  it  now  is;  its  oceans  boiled,  its  crust 
was  molten,  but  through  numberless  eons  it  has 
cooled  and  solidified  until  now  it  suffers  only  from 
occasional  earthquakes ;  and  here  and  there  spout 
out  from  below  its  volcanic  fires.  That  is,  there 
was  a  time  when  it  was  molten,  but  now  it  is  cool 
and  habitable,  and  this  process  of  cooling  is  going 
on  every  day,  and  the  time  will  come  when  the 
last  internal  fire  will  cease  to  bum,  and  the  earth 
will  be  cooled  solid  to  the  centre.  In  the  course 
of  nature  this  must  be  in  time,  we  know  not  how 
many  billions  of  years  hence. 

But,  equally,  there  was  the  time  when  it  was 
a  molten  mass,  and  there  must  have  been  a  time 
when  this  condition  began  to  exist,  for  the  sure 
process  of  refrigeration  is  not  yet  completed. 
The  fact  that  at  this  time  the  process  is  not  com- 
pleted is  proof  that  the  earth  has  not  existed  as 
earth  from  infinite  time.  It  began  to  exist  in 
finite  time. 

I  turn  then  to  this  earth's  sister  satellites  and 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  17 

to  the  sun  which  is  their  centre.  I  find  that  the 
big  planets,  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  have  not  yet 
cooled  down.  They  are  covered  with  clouds  of 
steamy  vapor.  The  small  ones,  from  Mercury 
to  Mars,  have  cooled  down  like  the  earth.  But 
the  sun  has  not  cooled  down.  Its  immense  mass 
has  not  yet  allowed  it  to  become  solid.  But  it  is 
giving  off  heat  all  the  time,  and  in  time  its  supply 
of  heat  will  be  exhausted,  whether  it  comes  by 
contraction  or  by  the  falling  into  it  of  meteorites, 
or  from  some  chemical  source,  like  radium,  which 
we  know  little  or  nothing  of.  It  must  follow  the 
example  of  Jupiter  and  be  surrounded  by  vapor, 
and  later  like  the  earth  become  solid,  rigid,  and 
cold.  That  will  happen,  imder  all  known  phys- 
ical laws,  after  myriads  of  eons.  But  it  has  not 
happened  yet.  Therefore  the  sun  has  not  existed 
as  source  of  light  and  heat  for  an  infinite  series  of 
years ;  otherwise  it  would  have  finished  its  course 
and  become  a  dead  sim.     It  had  its  beginning. 

Then  I  look  beyond  this  solar  system.  I  find 
that  this  world  of  ours,  the  sun  with  its  retinue 
of  planets,  is  but  one  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  mul- 
titude of  similar  suns.  They  are  about  us,  in 
every  direction,  at  vast  distances  from  each  other, 
and  reaching  out  one  beyond  another,  distance 
added  fathomlessly  beyond  distance,  immeasur- 
able, inconceivable.  But  we  see  them  crowded  in 
a  ring  that  divides  our  heavens,  thickest  in  the 
ring,   and  more  scattered  elsewhere,    so  that  it 


1 8        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

would  seem  that  this  our  sun  and  this  our  earth 
are  proximately,  as  spaces  are  measured  by  light- 
years,  somewhere  near  the  centre  of  a  vast  ring 
of  stars,  forming  in  the  total  a  huge  system  of 
suns  and  stars,  all  in  movement,  and  all,  it  may 
possibly  be,  revolving  about  some  common  centre 
or  centres.  We  do  not  know  certainly,  but  we 
know  of  some  that  they  are  moving,  and  that  our 
own  system  is  in  swift  motion  in  space.  We  can 
only  conclude  that  probably  they  are  all  in  mo- 
tion, even  as  the  planets  of  our  own  solar  system 
have  their  common  motion.  Our  little  system 
will  then  be  the  microcosm  of  the  multitudinous 
macrocosm  which  astounds  our  vision  with  its 
immensity  as  we  gaze  at  it  on  a  clear  night. 

But  again  we  ask :  What  is  its  history  ?  Had  it 
a  beginning  ?    Will  it  have  an  end  ? 

What  is  true  of  our  sun  is  true  of  every  sun 
which  occupies  its  place  in  the  starry  universe,  its 
little  space  as  compared  with  the  incomprehen- 
sible spaciousness  of  the  entire  circuit  of  stars 
whose  multitude  blurs  the  Milky  Way,  and  whose 
tens  of  thousands  blaze  in  the  rest  of  the  sky. 

As  the  sun  had  its  beginning  and  will  cease  to 
shine,  so  each  star  is  giving  out  its  portion  of 
heat  into  space,  losing  its  light,  approaching  its 
frigid  death.  Because  it  has  not  yet  reached  its 
grave,  it  has  not  existed  as  a  sun  from  eternity; 
it  had  its  beginning.  The  stellar  universe,  at  least 
as  we  know  it,  is  not  infinite,  it  is  finite,  in  time. 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  19 

And  it  is  not  infinite — it  is  finite,  in  space.  By 
very  nice  measured  observations  we  discover  that 
our  sun  is  moving  in  space,  very  swiftly  as  we 
measure  movements  on  the  earth,  very  slowly  as 
we  measure  stellar  time  and  distance  by  the  space 
through  which  light  will  move  in  a  year.  Many 
of  the  stars  we  know  are  thus  moving,  and  we 
reasonably  presume  that  they  all  are  moving,  and 
in  their  several  paths  or  orbits,  but  which  are  yet 
as  fixed  and  limited  as  is  the  circle  in  which  the 
stone  moves  which  a  boy  swings  by  a  string  about 
his  head.  So  far  as  we  can  learn  the  entire  imi- 
verse  of  stars  which  we  see  is  one  system,  or  pos- 
sibly two  systems,  limited  within  its  own  round 
of  revolutions  and  attractions,  and  bounded  by 
the  emptiness  of  space,  the  same  sort  of  space 
beyond  it.  Whether  beyond  this  stellar  complex 
of  moving  stars  there  exist  yet  other  stellar  sys- 
tems like  this  which  entrances  our  vision,  we  do 
not  know.  But,  so  far  as  we  can  learn,  our  uni- 
verse, all,  anywhere  in  total  space  that  we  know 
to  exist,  is  not  infinite;  it  is  limited.  It  is  just 
as  truly  limited  as  "the  visual  line  that  girts  us 
round,"  and  which  the  ignorant  yokel  deems  "the 
world's  extreme."  The  space  about  our  system 
of  stars  we  must  think  of  as  boundless,  infinite. 
Within  our  limited  universe  we  see  enormous 
empty  light-year  spaces,  and  then  outside  this 
universe  exists  a  further  reach  on  every  side  of 
empty  space,  yet  where  there  may  exist,  beyond 


20        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

our  power  to  discover  them,  other  distant  systems 
occupying  their  space  in  the  void  where  place  is 
not,  such  systems  as  astronomers  used  to  guess 
they  had  discovered  in  nebulae.  They  may  be 
there,  hidden  by  some  failure  of  light  to  penetrate 
the  distance.  It  is  possible,  but  we  have  no  evi- 
dence that  such  is  the  fact.  At  all  events,  out 
universe,  and  any  other  like  it,  is  finite  in  space 
as  in  time. 

The  question  whether  the  stellar  universe  had 
a  beginning,  and  is  thus  finite  in  time,  requires 
some  further  consideration.  Our  solar  system  has 
a  brilliant  central  sun,  and  non-luminous  planets 
which  would  be  quite  invisible  from  the  nearest 
star.  We  know  that  some  of  the  nearer  stars 
have  dark  planets  revolving  around  them;  they 
are  variable  stars,  hundreds  of  them.  Can  it  be 
only  the  planets,  no  bigger  than  Jupiter,  that  have 
cooled  down,  so  as  to  lose  their  visibility ;  and  are 
the  visible  stars  all  large,  and  are  they  all  the  large 
stars  there  are  ?  If  so,  they  are  all  of  about  the 
same  age,  came  into  being  at  about  the  same  time, 
in  a  vast  yet  limited  backward  view  of  time ;  and 
we  can  then  have  a  conception  of  the  beginning 
of  our  present-known  imi verse.  But  we  have  no 
reason  for  believing  that  such  is  the  case.  There 
may  equally  as  well  be  larger  stars  that  have  lost 
their  heat,  and  are  therefore  invisible;  and  if  so 
there  may  be  multitudes  of  them.  For  aught  we 
know,  and  it  is  quite  probable,  the  number  of 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  21 

dark,  cold,  invisible  stars  may  be  many  times  the 
number  of  the  visible  stars.  If  such  is  the  case, 
it  throws  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  our  stellar 
system  uncounted  eons  back  to  the  time  when 
the  oldest  and  deadest  of  all  the  dark  stars  began 
to  emit  light. 

That  there  are  such  dark,  invisible  stars  we 
have  evidence  in  the  sudden  outbreak  in  the 
heavens  of  a  new  star,  where  no  star,  or  a  very 
faint  star,  was  visible  before.  The  only  reason- 
able explanation  of  such  a  phenomenon  yet  given 
is  that  of  a  colHsion  between  two  stars.  Attrac- 
tion has  somehow  brought  them  together,  and 
the  collision  bursts  them  into  intense  heat.  They 
will  be  blown  into  fragments,  mostly  into  gaseous 
vapor,  continue  for  a  while  in  violent  combustion, 
and  gradually  sink  into  a  state  of  comparatively 
quiet  heat,  and  lose  much  of  their  temporary  splen- 
dor, and  may  even,  if  small  enough,  cease  to  be 
visible  at  all.  Where  they  shone  out  for  a  few 
months  or  years  there  will  again  be  a  dark  spot 
in  the  sky.     They  are  there  yet,  but  as  dark  stars. 

Now  of  such  stars  invisible  to  us  there  may  be 
millions  in  the  heavens.  We  have  no  reason  to 
believe  there  are  not.  There  is  room  for  them, 
as  there  is  for  the  visible  stars,  to  continue  on 
their  mighty  orbits  or  along  their  common  paths. 
How  do  we  know  that  our  sun  was  not  the  result 
of  some  such  collision  ?  That  would  have  been 
the  beginning  of  the  creation  of  our  solar  system 


2  2        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

out  of  the  materials  of  two  elder  suns,  forming  at 
first  a  vast  huge  mist  of  fire,  and  gradually  cool- 
ing and  condensing  into  our  system  of  sun,  plan- 
ets, satellites. 

We  have,  then,  no  reason  to  believe  with  any 
certainty,  or  even  probability,  that  the  beginning 
of  the  visibility  of  the  stars  we  now  see  in  the 
heavens  was  the  beginning  of  their  absolute  exist- 
ence. They  may  have  existed  in  other  forms,  as 
components  out  of  which  these  present  stars  were 
made.  Those  previous  components  may  also  have 
passed  through  their  cycle  of  change,  the  products 
of  some  previous  collision;  and  this  process  may 
have  continued  on  indefinitely  in  past  time,  for 
time  which  extends  into  a  past  eternity  is  long 
enough  for  any  conclusion,  no  matter  how  slow 
the  process.  It  would  then  seem  that  we  do  not 
find  in  the  heavens  themselves  any  evidence  that 
limits  certainly  the  date  of  its  origin. 

Yet  there  may  possibly  be  one  such  evidence 
of  limit.  If  in  case  of  collision  of  stars  one  is 
made  out  of  two,  then  the  number  of  stars,  living 
or  dead,  is  being  constantly,  and  no  matter  how 
slowly,  reduced.  So  far  as  I  can  see  there  is  likely 
to  be  some  such  reduction.  To  be  sure,  in  not 
every  case  of  a  new  star  must  the  two  that  meet 
join  to  form  a  new  larger  one,  for  the  angle  of 
approach  may  be  such  that  they  will  only  brush 
against  each  other,  and  then  pass  on  with  changed 
motions.     But  this  will  not  explain  such  a  sys- 


THE   DATA  FOR  BELIEF  23 

tern  as  this  of  ours;  nor  will  it  explain  the  spiral 
nebulae.  These  must  be  cases  of  an  actual  union 
of  the  two  into  one,  and  in  that  case  a  lessening 
of  the  number  of  stars  until,  we  may  well  conceive, 
they  shall  all  be  combined  into  one  common 
mass.  But  that  has  not  yet  occurred,  and  it  looks 
as  if  our  stellar  system  had  a  beginning. 

That  is,  if  there  is  any  force  which  could  pre- 
vent the  stars  moving  indefinitely  in  their  set 
courses  so  that  they  will  not  ever  come  into  col- 
lision. But  we  know  that  some  of  them  have 
come  into  collision.  That  might  be  because  two 
orbits  happen  to  cross  each  other,  and  the  two 
stars  happen  to  meet  at  the  node.  Then  there 
would  be  sure  to  be  a  collision.  Or  we  may 
imagine  that  there  exists  in  space  some  retarding 
substance,  lightly  gaseous  or  meteoric  dust,  or 
larger  meteoric  objects  which,  meeting  the  moving 
star,  are  drawn  to  it  and  so,  however  insensibly, 
reduce  its  motion  and  so  tend  to  bring  it  toward 
a  common  centre.  No  matter  how  infinitesimal 
this  effect,  yet  in  unlimited  time  the  restdt  would 
be  sure  at  last  to  be  reached.  Every  meteor  that 
hits  the  earth  somewhat  changes  its  orbit  and 
period  of  revolution.  Yet  we  are  not  sure  that 
these  wandering  masses  or  fragments  of  local 
matter  exist  in  the  stellar  spaces.  All  we  know  is 
that  they  exist  within  our  solar  system  and  may 
have  originated  there.  We  do  not  certainly  know 
that  hyperbolic  comets,  or  those  that  appear  such. 


24        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

come  from  outside  our  system.  The  most  we 
can  say  is,  that,  so  far  as  we  yet  know,  there  is 
no  Hmit  that  can  be  set  to  the  beginning  of  our 
stellar  universe,  for  the  great  bulk  of  stars  may 
never  come  into  collision,  and  their  path  may 
never  be  changed  either  by  collision  or  by  their 
permanent  retention  in  a  fixed  orbit,  nor  their 
speed  reduced  by  wandering  free  portions  of 
matter  so  as  to  bring  them  into  new  colliding 
orbits.  We  only  know  that  certain  collisions  have 
taken  place.  The  stars  give  us  no  certain  evi- 
dence in  themselves  as  to  whether  in  some  form 
or  other  they  have  existed  from  eternity.  But 
we  do  know  that  in  their  present  condition  their 
existence  is  within  limits  of  time,  for  they  have  not 
yet  ceased  to  expend  their  light  and  heat. 


CHAPTER  II 
ETHER,    MATTER,   AND   MIND 

I  HAVE  spoken  of  matter  in  its  masses  as  suns 
and  stars,  as  affording  data  which  one  should 
consider  when  asking  what  is  the  Cause  of  all 
things.  We  need  to  consider  them  more  in  their 
material,  to  ask  what  is  their  atomic  constitution. 

Chemists  tell  us  that  everything  we  know — soil, 
rock,  plants,  animals — is  made  up  of  various  com- 
binations of  some  eighty  different  elements.  The 
combinations  are  innimierable,  the  components 
are  few.  These  elements  have,  until  lately,  ap- 
peared to  be  final,  undecomposable.  Of  them 
this  earth  is  composed. 

But  these  elements,  so  called,  are  not  elemen- 
tary. Each  element,  even  the  simplest,  such  as 
hydrogen,  is  itself  a  complex  system  of  vastly 
smaller  atomies  called  electrons,  which  move  about 
each  other  and  bump  and  sometimes  escape,  pos- 
sessed of  velocities  comparable  to  that  of  light, 
yet  held  together  by  a  force  far  greater  than  any 
other  force  we  can  control.  There  are  said  to  be 
a  thousand  of  them  in  one  atom  of  hydrogen. 
In  a  space  of  air  not  so  big  as  a  pea,  one  part  in 
one  hundred  thousand  is  the   gas  neon,  and  of 

25 


26        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

that  neon  there  are  ten  million  million  neon  atoms, 
each  one  of  those  atoms  composed  of  perhaps  ten 
thousand  electrons,  charged  with  electricity,  danc- 
ing about  in  spacious  room.  This  is  the  wonder 
of  matter,  of  all  the  matter  we  find  on  the  earth. 
How  is  it  with  the  stars  ? 

There  fall  to  the  earth  occasionally  from  the 
sky  masses  of  matter,  not  of  the  earth,  but  of  the 
nature  outside  of  the  earth.  Analysis  proves  that 
they  are  composed  of  elements  such  as  we  are 
familiar  with  on  the  earth,  metals,  stones  such  as 
ours.  We  then  would  presume  that  the  nature 
we  do  not  know  is  all  of  it  like  the  nature  we  do 
know. 

But  we  can  be  more  positive.  With  the  spec- 
troscope, whether  a  glass  lens  or  a  fine  grating, 
we  can  break  up  the  light  from  any  flame  into  the 
colors  of  its  spectrum,  and  across  that  spectrum 
will  appear  certain  lines,  and  every  element  gives 
its  own  characteristic  lines  and  tints.  Thus 
hydrogen  has  one  set  of  lines,  carbon  another,  iron 
another.  This  method  of  analysis  applied  to  the 
light  of  the  sun  shows  that  its  highly  heated  pho- 
tosphere is  made  up  of  various  elements  familiar 
to  us  on  the  earth,  for  in  its  spectrum  are  the  lines 
we  find  here  in  iron,  carbon,  or  hydrogen.  We 
then  conclude  that  the  material  of  which  the  sun 
is  made  is  just  the  same  as  that  of  which  the 
earth  is  made,  and  we  begin  to  conclude  that  the 
sun  and  the  earth  belong  to  one  single  chemical 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND        27 

system,  as  well  as  to  one  system  of  orbital  move- 
ment. The  Sim  is  proved  to  be  of  the  same  ele- 
mental constitution  as  our  earth.  The  two  are  of 
one  pattern. 

And  spectral  analysis  has  been  applied  to  the 
stars,  to  such  as  emit  light  enough  to  allow  it  to 
be  condensed  and  to  form  a  spectnmi;  and  we 
find  that  they  too,  and  the  nebulae  as  well,  have 
precisely  the  same  elements  as  we  find  on  the 
earth,  and  they  show  no  others.  They  too  are 
of  one  pattern,  one  chemical  scheme  with  our 
solar  system.  Some  show  a  simpler  spectrum 
than  others,  due,  no  doubt,  to  their  different  in- 
tensity of  heat.  Some  have  cooled  down  more 
than  others;  some  are  larger  than  others,  some 
older  than  others  very  likely.  They  indicate 
various  stages  in  the  process  of  their  refrigeration ; 
and  we  may  conclude  that  those  which  have 
cooled  down  so  that  they  have  ceased  to  emit 
light  are  also  of  the  same  chemical  composition; 
for  when  they  collide  and  give  us  a  new  star,  that 
star  shows  the  same  familiar  elements  when 
analyzed  with  the  spectroscope.  The  total  imi- 
verse  of  stars  is  of  one  composition,  forms  one 
chemical  system. 

Another  point  must  be  considered.  Not  only 
is  the  chemistry  of  all  the  known  universe  the 
same,  with  its  atomic  attractions  therein  involved, 
but  we  know  that  the  other  physical  forces  which 
control  the  stars  are  the  same  as  control  the  earth. 


28        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

They  have  the  same  laws  of  heat.  They  kindle 
and  cool  in  the  same  way.  Their  gravitation  is 
the  same,  when  two  stars  rush  together,  or  double 
stars  are  held  in  their  orbits  by  the  balancing  of 
their  projectile  force  and  their  mutual  attrac- 
tions, or  where  the  nebulae  display  their  spiral 
courses.  Gravity  rules  the  whole  universe.  And 
the  laws  of  light  work  the  same  everywhere,  the 
light  of  all  the  stars  obeying  the  same  law  as  con- 
trols that  of  a  candle,  carried  equally  on  waves 
of  ether.  The  whole  great  universe  of  starry 
worlds  is  one,  built  out  of  the  same  materials, 
moved  by  the  same  forces,  governed  by  the  same 
physical  laws.  It  is  all  one  single  system,  one 
law,  one  order  of  thought,  one  scheme,  one  geom- 
etry, one  plan  fitted  to  one  formula,  one  unitary 
universe. 

Yet  one  more  great  fact  must  be  considered 
before  we  can  apprehend  the  full  grandeur  and 
marvel  of  the  simple  oneness  of  the  vast  complex- 
ity of  our  visible  and  invisible  universe,  visible  in 
some  of  its  separate  concrete  masses,  invisible  in 
its  uncounted  darkened  stars;  minute  past  all 
possible  combination  of  lenses  in  its  ultimate 
atoms;  yet  not  merely  invisible  but  impondera- 
ble, and  to  all  the  nicest  deductions  of  science, 
immaterial,  that  pervasive  something  that  fills  the 
boundless  spaces  which  separate  the  heavenly 
bodies;  that  next  to  nothing,  mysterious,  uni- 
versal ether  whose  waves  bring  us  the  record,  not 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND        29 

of  the  stars  only,  but  of  every  movement  that  we 
can  perceive.  It  is  this  ether  to  which  we  must 
now  direct  our  attention. 

We  do  not  know  certainly  what  ether  is.  It  is 
usually  considered  a  something,  neither  solid  nor 
gaseous,  scarcely  to  be  named  material,  scarcely 
immaterial, 

''If  substance  might  be  called  that  shadow  seemed, 
For  each  seemed  either"; 

sui  generis,  not  atomic  but  continuous,  every- 
where freely  mobile  within  the  most  condensed 
solids  and  filHng  equally  all  vacuums,  having  no 
quality  that  we  know  of  except  that  of  carrying, 
like  water  and  air,  various  sorts  of  vibrations, 
such  as  light  and  the  current  of  wireless  telegraphy, 
and  by  its  inexplicable  strain  all  the  forces  of 
gravitation.  But  the  most  remarkable  power 
which  is  ascribed  by  physicists  to  ether  is  that  of 
being  the  essence,  substratum,  or  material  of  all 
chemical  atoms,  that  is,  of  all  matter.  Physicists 
talk  of  ultimate  atoms  as  nothing  more  than  vor- 
tices or  some  other  modification  of  ether.  Some- 
how, somewhere,  the  invisible  and  inconceivably 
tenuous  bits  of  ether  were  compacted  into  solid 
atoms  of  matter,  or  into  the  subatoms,  electrons, 
out  of  which  the  atoms  are  composed.  Once  thus 
converted  into  matter  these  atoms,  so  far  as  we 
know,  cannot  lose  their  structure  or  their  attrac- 
tions.   We  have  never  seen  atoms  resolved  back 


30        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

into  ether,  nor  have  we  seen  them  created  out  of 
ether.  How  they  got  their  new  motions  we  do 
not  know,  nor  can  we  guess  when  they  began  to 
exist.  We  only  believe  that  matter,  all  that  ex- 
ists, here  on  the  earth  or  in  all  the  labyrinth  of 
stars,  is  an  inscrutable  modification  of  ether, 
massed  close  and  solid  where  earth  and  suns  and 
stars  are;  but  in  all  the  void  spaces  where  stars 
are  not,  incalculably  vaster  spaces,  is  uniform, 
continuous,  inactive  ether,  doing  nothing,  only 
responsive  to  forces  that  impinge  on  it  and  pass 
through  it,  the  matrix  of  all  things,  out  of  which 
all  things  came,  and  without  which  no  life,  in- 
deed no  form  of  matter  could  exist,  the  source  of 
all  things,  which  in  oiu*  later  science  replaces  the 
old  Eastern  Chaos,  or  Tiamat,  for  it  is 

"The  womb  of  Nature  and  perhaps  her  grave, 
Of  neither  sea  nor  shore  nor  air  nor  fire, 
But  all  these  in  their  pregnant  causes  mixed.'* 

And  equally  ether  is  the  universal  medium  which 
binds  all  things,  that  through  which  all  forces  act, 
from  cohesion  to  gravity,  apart  from  which  the 
universe,  if  there  were  a  universe,  would  be  a 
chaos.  In  the  straining  of  ether  abide  all  the 
mightiest  and  all  the  tiniest  forces  we  know.  It 
is  the  mystery  of  the  universe.  Inactive  ?  Nay, 
the  reservoir  of  all  force. 
And  what  is  the  extent  of  this  ether?    All  we 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND       31 

can  say  is  that  it  pervades  and  fills  all  space  so 
far  as  our  eager  knowledge  can  pursue  it. 

"Beyond  the  loom  of  the  last  lone  star  through  open 
darkness  hurled, 
Further  than  rebel  comet  dared,  or  hiving  star-swarm 
swirled," 

reach  the  confines  of  ether,  for  it  embraces  the 
outmost  circuit  of  our  stellar  universe. 

Does  it  reach  beyond,  infinitely  beyond,  our 
system  of  stars  ?  We  know  not,  for  of  the  spaces 
beyond  we  can  know  nothing.  If  there  be  ether 
there  no  star  shines  to  send  us  word.  If  there  be 
no  ether  beyond,  it  would  seem  that  no  star  could 
exist,  if  stars  are  made  out  of  ether;  or  if  not  so 
made  there  would  be  no  tmdulatory  meditim  to 
bring  us  their  light,  only 

"a  dark, 
Illimitable  ocean  without  boimd, 
Without  dimension,  where  length,  breadth  and  height 
And  time  and  place  are  lost.'* 

But  because,  so  far  as  we  do  know,  to  a  distance 
that  seems  infinite  to  us,  but  is  not  infinite,  the 
ether  exists  complete  and  effective,  we  can  only 
presimie  that  it  exists  still  beyond,  as  infinite  as 
infinite  space  itself,  filling  all  space,  competent 
to  be  the  material  of  infinite  worlds,  and  systems 
of  worlds  beyond  the  single  Galactic  Circle  of 
Sims  within  which  our  sun  shines  so  splendid,  so 


32        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

predominant  to  us,  but  seen  from  other  worlds 
no  more  than  an  inconspicuous  star. 

What  the  mighty  visible  and  invisible  universe 
shows  to  us  is  a  boundless  and  infinite  expanse  of 
space,  and  all  apparently  occupied  by  the  medium 
invisible,  rigid,  they  tell  us,  yet  inconceivably 
tenuous,  though  continuous,  which  we  know  as 
the  luminiferous  ether,  boundless,  infinite;  but 
here  and  there  solidified  into  chemical  atoms,  and 
these  coalesced  into  suns  and  planets  which  seem 
huge  in  themselves,  but  which  compared  with  the 
ethereal  spaces  in  which  they  are  dispersed,  are 
but  finite  and  relatively  inconsiderable.  Space  is 
infinite,  ether  may  be  infinite,  but  the  physical 
matter  and  substance  of  the  worlds  is  finite,  exist- 
ing and  active  only  locally,  while  the  infinitude  of 
ether  in  which  it  moves,  and  out  of  which  it  was 
made,  remains  passive,  formless,  silent,  yet  pliant 
to  the  electrical  and  luminous  and  gravitational 
forces  which  it  has  itself  created.  But  when  and 
how  did  this  ether,  here  and  not  there,  transform 
its  weightless,  homogeneous  substance  into  the 
heterogeneous  qualities  and  attractions  which 
constitute  matter?  That  is  the  problem,  the 
riddle  of  the  universe,  for  which  we  crave  an  an- 
swer. Was  it  chance  ?  Was  it  God  ?  Will  Na- 
ture herself  answer  ? 

But  I  have  said  that  we  do  not  know  what 
ether  is.  It  is  generally  held  to  be  continuous, 
like  a  fliiid.     But  there  are  those — the  famous 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND        33 

chemist  Mendeleeff  was  one — who  think  it  a  gas. 
An  EngHsh  physicist.  Doctor  A.  Wegener,  declares 
that  the  gas  is  coroninm,  which  appears  in  the 
extreme  heat  of  the  corona  of  the  sun,  and  in  the 
blaze  of  meteors  and  in  the  northern  lights  many 
miles  up  in  the  sky.  Coronium  has  a  combining 
weight  many  times  less  than  that  of  hydrogen,  and 
its  own  dispersive  power  would  escape  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  earth.  It  is  suggested  that  it  therefore 
spreads  in  space  as  a  light-transmitting  gas. 

If  so,  if  ether  is  merely  such  a  tenuous  gas  as 
coronium,  or  ultimate  electrons,  thinly  scattered 
in  space,  then  it  is  not  continuous;  it  does  not 
fill  the  space  in  which  it  travels.  If  the  amount 
of  it  is  limited  there  will  come  a  limit  beyond 
which  its  atoms  could  not  repel  each  other,  and 
it  would  cease  to  diffuse  itself.  It  would  not  be 
spread  over  all  infinite  space,  and  what  is  more 
important,  it  would  be  discontinuous,  and  there 
would  be  boundless  interspaces  which  it  did  not 
occupy,  but  through  which  it  simply  passed. 
Yet  even  so  it  would  be  difficult  to  comprehend 
how  the  attractions  or  repulsions  of  the  atoms  of 
such  a  gas  could  be  transported  across  the  spaces 
between  them  without  the  existence  of  such  a 
continuous  substance  as  ether  is  usually  supposed 
to  be.  I  mention  this  view  of  ether  as  an  attenu- 
ated gas  simply  to  show  that  such  a  theory  does 
not  make  it  universal  and  infinite. 

Thus  far  I  have  gathered  the  data  for  the  con- 


34        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

struction  of  a  religious  philosophy  solely  from  life- 
less matter,  earth,  stm,  and  stars,  for  I  cannot 
think  of  them  as  possessed  of  life  or  will.  Phi- 
losophers may  imagine  that  atoms  dance  of  their 
own  choice,  or  that  a  stone  falls  to  the  earth  by 
a  sort  of  volition,  but  to  my  mind,  which  is  of  the 
common  sort,  that  seems  merely  poetical,  imagi- 
native. Besides  such  dead  matter  there  is  living 
matter,  plants  and  animals,  that  move  imder  the 
direction  of  impulses  that  are  not  chemical. 
Only  a  briefer  mention  need  here  be  made  of  the 
data  of  life  and  the  data  of  mind,  all  to  be  treated 
of  later. 

The  human  mind,  and  the  lesser  minds  of 
brutes,  and  the  life  forces  of  animals  and  plants 
have  in  them  powers  quite  absent  in  dead  matter, 
in  water,  rocks,  and  earth.  Man  has  a  mind,  what 
he  sometimes  calls  his  soul,  and  herein  he  possesses 
what  differs  radically  from  the  chemic  force  of 
the  sun,  less  radically  from  the  lesser  minds  and 
wills  of  the  beasts,  and  radically  yet  again  from 
the  power  of  life  which  we  observe  in  the  veg- 
etable world.  He  thus  has  two  powers  utterly 
different  from  those  of  the  purely  physical  world: 
he  has  life  and  he  has  thought.  The  atoms  of 
physical  matter  move,  but  they  have  not  life. 
They  have  their  own  chemical  and  gravitational 
attractions;  they  move  under  fixed  laws,  they 
gather  their  molecules  into  crystals,  they  shiver 
in  earthquakes,  they  rush  and  flash  in  lightning 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND        35 

and  storm,  as  planets  they  whirl  about  the  sun, 
and  they  blaze  in  the  stars ;  but  it  is  all  automatic, 
no  act  done  by  any  will  of  their  own.  Nor  is  it 
by  any  life  of  theirs,  for  theirs  is  not  a  living  force. 
Crystals  grow,  but  not  as  plants  grow.  Their 
molecules  gather,  layer  on  layer,  imchanged,  and 
fill  the  rocks  with  regular  forms;  and  the  winter 
frost  covers  our  window-panes  with  the  simulacra 
of  vegetation;  but  it  is  all  the  same  lifeless,  me- 
chanical force,  utterly  unlike  the  growth  of 
plants  or  the  will  of  man. 

Equally  the  thought  and  will  and  feeling  of 
man  are  not  found  in  the  major  part  of  the  world 
which  possesses  life,  the  vegetable  world.  Life 
and  mind  we  easily  recognize  as  two  different 
things.  Man  has  both,  plants  have  but  one.  We 
cannot  believe — for  we  see  no  evidence — that  the 
acorn  swells,  puts  forth  its  two  carpellary  leaves, 
throws  down  its  little  roots,  then  sends  up  new 
and  different  foliage,  grows  and  spreads  into  a 
mighty  tree,  through  any  voluntary  action  of  its 
own.  We  call  the  strange,  apparently  purpose- 
ful, certainly  directive  movement  which  now  con- 
trols its  chemical  and  physical  activities,  which 
sends  the  sap  upward  and  transforms  it  on  the 
way  into  wood,  and  at  the  extremities  into  leafage 
and  fruit — we  call  it  vital  force,  for  we  must  give 
it  a  name,  although  we  do  not  at  all  understand 
it.  The  tree  struck  by  Hghtning  has  no  feeling 
of  pain.    The  rose  does  not  complain  when  it  is 


36        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

plucked;  it  has  no  fear,  no  pleasure,  no  will  to 
grow.  Even  the  sensitive  plant  is  not  sensitive. 
When  the  stamens  of  the  barberry  blossom  touched 
by  the  leg  of  a  bee  snap  against  the  pistil,  or  the 
leaves  of  the  mimosa  contract  when  rudely  struck, 
or  the  lid  of  a  pitcher-plant  shuts  down  when  an 
insect  is  caught  within,  it  is  no  more  an  act  of 
will  than  when  the  trap  snaps  on  a  mouse.  There 
is  a  force  we  call  life  in  the  plant,  but  no  will. 

And  man  differs  from  the  rest  of  the  animal 
world  in  that  he  has  the  new  powers  that  belong 
to  mind  in  a  far  higher  degree  than  do  they.  In 
man  and  all  the  animals  appear  all  the  chemical 
and  physical  forces  in  full  exercise;  all  the  vital 
forces,  and  in  addition  those  other  new  powers 
which  we  call  mental  or  spiritual.  The  lower 
forms  of  animal  life  can  feel;  they  can  to  some 
little  or  some  greater  degree,  think  and  will. 
Even  the  minute  bacteria,  even  the  fixed  coral 
polyp  can  move  somewhat  by  its  own  choice.  It 
is  only  the  lowest  grade  of  thought,  but  it  is 
thought  all  the  same,  what  man  has,  but  in  a 
far  lower  degree.  Half-way  between  the  polyp 
and  the  man  stand  the  dog  and  the  elephant, 
and  the  chimpanzee,  whose  intellection  seems  the 
parody  of  that  which  we  possess,  in  which  we  are 
supreme  and  wonderful. 

Consider  the  quality  of  what  we  call  mind,  for 
we  have  the  habit  of  distinguishing  it  from  the 
physical  structvire  through  which  it  acts,  its  func- 


ETHER,  MATTER,  AND   MIND        37 

tions  from  those  of  the  body.  We  suppose  it  to 
act  somehow  through  the  brain;  other  peoples 
have  supposed  it  to  be  seated  in  the  heart  or  the 
liver  or  the  kidneys.  "Thou  triest  my  heart 
and  my  kidneys,"  says  a  Hebrew  psalmist.  Its 
powers  are  very  different  from  those  of  the  body. 
It  moves  the  limbs;  it  is  a  master  and  the  body 
is  but  a  tool,  as  really  so  as  is  a  hammer  or  a 
plough.  Every  such  act  is  performed  wholly  by 
use  of  physical  laws,  but  the  control  is  not  physical. 
It  not  only  uses  the  body  and  other  bodies,  but 
it  can  be  intensely  active  without  visibly  using 
the  body  at  all,  in  hard  thinking  while  absolutely 
quiet  and  physically  at  rest.  While  it  commands 
the  body  and  directs  physical  movements  its  own 
activity  is  very  different  from  those  physical 
movements.  Its  activities  are  intangible,  im- 
ponderable, belonging  to  its  own  imique  sphere, 
that  of  thinking,  feeling,  and  willing.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  certain  physical  modifications  related 
to  its  activities,  increased  circulation  of  blood  to 
the  brain,  and  consumption  of  brain  tissue,  but 
the  flow  of  blood  to  the  brain,  or  the  waste  of 
brain  tissue,  is  not  thinking  or  feeling  or  willing, 
but  something  very  different,  belonging  to  a  differ- 
ent plane,  that  to  which  we  give  a  separate  name, 
and  call  it  mental  or  spiritual  to  distinguish  it 
from  the  merely  physical  or  vital.  Whether  or 
not  this  mind,  soul,  or  spirit  is  a  real  entity,  sepa- 
rate from  the  brain  through  which  it  acts,  is  to  be 


38        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

considered  later,  but  for  the  present  I  observe  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  the  usual  belief  of  the  race 
that  our  mental  action  is  not  a  mere  fimction  of 
the  body,  but  that  it  belongs  to  what  we  call  mind 
or  soul,  or  spirit,  something  that  is  not  material, 
and  can  properly  be  thought  of  as  detachable 
from  the  body. 

These  are  the  data,  matter,  life,  and  mind,  of 
which  we  must  inquire  whether  they  bring  any 
message  of  God. 


CHAPTER  III 
HAD  THE  UNIVERSE  A  BEGINNING? 

THE  one  great  question  to  be  answered,  if 
possible,  in  the  study  of  nature  about  us  is, 
as  I  conceive  it,  whether  the  conditions  of 
nature  are  such  as  to  indicate  that  it  originated, 
moves,  and  changes  by  its  own  inherent  force, 
of  necessity,  so  that  it  always  was,  in  some  form 
or  other,  and  always  will  be;  or  whether  there  is 
evidence  that  it  did  not  always  exist ;  or,  at  least, 
if  it  did  exist  from  eternity  that  there  appears 
within  it  evidence  of  forces  not  of  itself,  acting 
upon  it,  which  have  caused  or  modified  the  move- 
ments of  which  we  have  knowledge.  In  the  one 
case  nature  is  self -existent,  eternal  of  itself;  in 
the  other  case  it  is  contingent,  created,  controlled 
by  some  superior  outside  power.  To  this  great 
question  I  now  address  myself. 

In  this  study  the  first  great  basal  fact  is  this: 
that  because  something  exists  now  something 
must  have  always  existed.  That  something  which 
always  existed  may  be  the  present  nature,  or  it 
may  be  something  on  which  the  nature  we  know 
depends  for  its  origin;  some  sort  of  existence 
there  must  have  been  from  all  eternity.     For  ex- 

39 


40        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

istence  cannot  come  out  of  non-existence.  Non- 
existence can  create  nothing,  can  evolve  nothing. 
^We  cannot  conceive  of  non-existence  begetting 
f  existence.  Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit,  that  is  a  condition 
of  thought.  Everything  must  have  a  cause,  in 
my  philosophy,  and  in  every  one  else's.  I  would 
not  stop  to  try  to  argue  what  is  an  axiomatic  law 
of  thought.  The  cause  of  a  present  existence 
may  be  in  itself ;  or  this  present  existence  may  be 
contingent,  dependent  on  something  that  previ- 
ously existed,  as  a  house  depends  on  a  carpenter. 
But  because  there  are  objects  now  existing  there 
must  always  have  been  actual  concrete  existence 
of  some  sort. 

That  which  always  existed,  and  out  of  which 
the  present  course  of  nature  has  come,  must  have 
been  actual  concrete  existence,  something  more 
than  abstract  imaginable  relation.  Such  primal 
source  of  all  things,  standing  tmder  everything 
else,  out  of  which  nature  has  come,  if  nature  be 
not  eternal,  can  be  no  abstract  quality  or  relation, 
like  a  geometrical  truth,  but  must  be  something 
concrete,  comparable,  in  matter  or  in  mind,  with 
the  nature  which  is  hypothetically  supposed  to 
have  sprung  from  it.  It  is  not  such  a  merely  de- 
pendent, relative  truth  as  that  the  three  angles  of 
a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles,  nor  is  it 
anything  like  abstract  virtue,  which  itself  depends 
on  the  relation  of  one  sentient  being  to  another. 
Nor  can  it  be  such  a  category  as  time  or  space, 


HAD  THE  UNIVERSE  A  BEGINNING  ?    41 

about  which  there  is  nothing  concrete,  and  which 
can  have  no  generative  force.  The  fact  that  real 
matter,  Hfe,  and  mind  now  exist  is  proof  that 
either  they  always  existed,  or  that  something 
equally  substantial  and  real  out  of  which  they 
sprang  always  did  exist. 

And,  once  more,  that  something  which  existed 
from  before  all  eternity,  which  had  no  beginning, 
no  pre-existing  cause,  must  have  found  in  itself 
the  cause  of  its  existence;  it  is  self -existent.  Its 
own  nature  requires  it  to  exist.  We  can  go  no 
fiu-ther.  We  cannot  explain  why  or  how  that 
exists  which  had  no  beginning;  and  only  know 
that  because  something  exists  now,  something 
must,  must  of  its  own  necessity,  always  have  ex- 
isted, whatever  that  something  is,  matter  or  mind. 
We  wish  to  learn  whether  existing  nature  gives 
us  any  indication  what  it  is,  matter  or  mind. 

I  do  not  see  that  I  have  any  right  to  judge 
whether  that  primal  source  and  origin  of  all 
things,  self -existent,  of  its  own  necessity,  was 
material  or  spiritual,  matter  or  mind,  or  whether 
both  so  existed  eternally,  or  even  both  were  fused 
in  one.  Matter  and  mind  cover  all  the  existences 
that  we  know  or  can  conceive  of.  This  is  the 
dualism  of  nature,  and  I  can  see  no  reason  for 
questioning  the  actual  existence  of  both,  which 
we  know  equally  by  their  diverse  qualities,  one 
of  bulk  and  weight,  the  other  of  consciousness  and 
will.    And  self -existence  we  cannot  comprehend. 


42        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

We  can  know  the  fact,  but  how  or  why  I  cannot 
know.  I  cannot  venture  to  say  whether  the  self- 
existent  and  eternal  should  be  matter  or  mind,  for 
why  anything  should  exist  at  all  is  past  my  under- 
standing. 

Let  no  one  tell  me  that  the  argument  thus  far 
presented  is  abstract  or  scholastic.  I  deny  it. 
It  is  plain  and  simple,  level  to  the  comprehension 
of  any  one.  It  is  that,  because  something  now 
is,  something  always  was,  call  it  nature  or  call  it 
God,  and  that  what  existed  always,  which  had 
no  antecedent  cause,  must  have  existed  in  the 
nature  of  things,  had  its  cause  in  itself,  was  neces- 
sarily self -existent.  This  is  simple,  almost  ax- 
iomatic, but  it  is  large,  grand.  It  takes  in  all 
necessities  and  all  infinities.  It  carries  us  back- 
ward along  the  track  of  that  measureless  duration 
which  has  no  beginning  of  bound.  It  brings  us 
face  to  face  with  the  primordium  of  nature,  with 
that  source  within  whose  grasp  was  the  vastness 
of  the  constellations,  and  the  vaster  mystery  of 
the  intelligences  which  inhabit  and  rule  this 
planet,  and  we  know  not  how  many  others. 

It  is  so  utterly  impossible  for  us  to  compre- 
hend a  past  eternity,  and  to  conceive  how  out  of 
a  past  eternity  the  present  time  could  have  been 
reached,  that  it  is  of  no  use  for  us  to  speculate 
over  it.  This  fact  we  know,  that  out  of  a  past 
eternity  the  present  moment  has  come,  and  equally 
we  know  that  out  of  a  past  eternity  has  come  the 


HAD  THE  UNIVERSE  A  BEGINNING  ?     43 

cosmic  course  of  time  which  includes  all  the  un- 
known history  of  the  present  universe,  running 
back  we  cannot  guess  or  imagine  how  far.  Nor 
do  we  need  in  imagination  to  set  a  time  within  the 
current  of  eternity  when  the  primal  source  began 
to  generate  the  contingent  existences.  It  may  al- 
ways have  done  so,  from  eternity,  so  that  in  such  a 
case  nature,  as  we  now  know  it,  may  be  as  eternal 
as  its  supposed  eternal  source,  but  yet  just  as  con- 
tingent on  its  ever-acting  eternal  source  as  if  it 
had  begun  to  be  generated  at  a  definite  point  of 
time. 

And  yet  let  it  be  clearly  tmderstood  that  no 
primal  origin  of  all  things  could  have  existed 
always,  from  eternity,  except  as  it  existed  by  some 
necessity  within  itself.  It  did  not  come  to  exist 
by  chance.  And  let  it  be  further  seen  that  such 
internal  necessity  of  self -existence  could  be  lim- 
ited by  no  time  or  place,  for  there  would  be  the 
same  necessity  of  existence  at  one  time  as  at  an- 
other. What  exists  of  its  own  necessity  must 
exist  always,  must  exist  everywhere.  We  can- 
not think  it  otherwise.  A  truth  in  geometry 
cannot  be  true  in  London  and  false  in  Peking. 
Any  inherent  necessity  must  be  universal.  This 
principle  will  supply  our  test  in  the  study  of  pres- 
ent forms  of  existence.  What  does  not  exist 
everywhere  and  always  does  not  exist  of  necessity. 
It  is  contingent,  had  a  beginning,  had  a  cause. 

And,  first,  does  the  ether,  out  of  which,  under 


44        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  current  belief,  all  matter  is  derived,  give  evi- 
dence of  being  self-existent  and  eternal,  or  of 
being  contingent  and  dependent  on  a  cause  ? 

Up  to  within  quite  modem  times  we  have  not 
known  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  ether. 
When  poets  spoke  of  ether  and  the  ethereal 
spaces,  they  meant  the  upper  air.  But  after  it 
was  learned  that  it  takes  eight  minutes  for  light 
to  reach  the  earth  from  the  sun,  there  came  to 
be  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  an  elastic  me- 
dium in  space  which  carries  light  by  its  waves. 
We  have  later  learned  that  this  same  medium 
which  we  call  ether  can  carry  our  wireless  teleg- 
raphy. Our  physicists  do  not  certainly  know 
what  ether  is,  but  they  know  it  is.  The  prevalent 
belief  is  that  it  is  a  continuous  substance,  differ- 
ent from  all  other  matter  known,  hardly  material, 
utterly  imponderable,  not  subject  to  the  attrac- 
tion of  earth  and  stars,  incompressible,  perfectly 
elastic,  absolutely  filling  all  space.  It  is  in  a 
sense  actually  material,  though  hardly  matter 
itself,  for  out  of  it  all  matter  is  made,  and,  what 
is  most  important  to  our  discussion,  it  is  tiniver- 
sally  existent. 

So  far  as  we  know  there  is  no  space  where  ether 
is  not.  It  is  in  the  depths  of  the  earth,  within 
the  constituents  of  the  most  solid  rocks  and 
metals,  even  within  our  own  bodies.  We  live 
and  move  in  it  more  truly  than  we  live  and  move 
in  the  air  about  us.  And  there  are  no  distant 
spaces,  and  none  intervening,  so  far  as  we  can  dis- 


HAD  THE  UNIVERSE  A  BEGINNING?    45 

cover  or  guess,  where  ether  is  not.  That  Hght 
comes  to  us  from  the  sun  is  proof  that  some 
atomic  motion  of  intensely  heated  particles  has 
communicated  their  motion  to  ether;  and  this 
intervening  ether  has  brought  the  motion  to  in- 
conceivably small  rods  in  our  optic  nerves.  But 
the  sun's  ninety-five  million  of  miles  distance  is 
insignificant  compared  with  the  distance  of  the 
few  fixed  stars  whose  distance  astronomers  have 
measured,  and  whose  light  must  travel  through 
many  years  unwasted  before  it  reaches  us;  while 
countless  other  stars  are  many  times  more  dis- 
tant, far  beyond  any  angle  of  parallax  which  we 
can  measure.  Yet  all  through  these  distances  on 
every  side  of  us  there  is  ether,  ether  unbounded, 
universal. 

And,  apparently,  far  beyond  the  distances  which 
are  embraced  in  our  stellar  system.  For  the  stars 
are  all  moving,  like  our  sim,  ten  or  twenty  miles 
every  second  in  space.  In  the  millions  of  years 
during  which  we  know  our  solar  system  to  have 
existed  it  has  been  moving  forward  into  new 
space,  and  yet  we  know — ^for  the  record  of  life  in 
the  lower  strata  proves  it — always  enveloped  in 
ether.  So  the  whole  system  of  stars,  whether 
moving  individually  or  by  a  common  motion, 
wherever  they  move  forward,  do  not  escape  the 
ocean  of  ether. 

Is  then  this  ether  infinite?  Has  it  no  limits 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  stellar  universe?  We 
know  of  none.     If  it  can  reach  so  far,  we  can  see 


46        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

no  reason  why  it  may  not  reach  beyond  all  con- 
ceivable bounds  of  our  universe  or  all  universes. 
It  would  appear  to  us  that  as  space  must  be  con- 
ceived as  absolutely  limitless,  so  ether  appears  to 
us  to  fill  and  occupy  all  this  limitless  space,  and 
to  be  equally  infinite.  And  if  infinite  in  space, 
why  not  equally  limitless  and  infinite  in  time? 
We  cannot  say.  Ether  everywhere  co-ordinate 
with  all  space;  ether  always,  co-ordinate  with 
all  time  past  and  present,  that  is  the  apparent 
conclusion  to  which  our  present  knowledge  con- 
ducts us. 

If  ether  is,  as  usually  believed,  a  continuous 
form  of  subsistence  absolutely  filling  all  space  as 
water  fills  the  ocean,  filling  it  completely,  without 
interstices  or  vacancies,  and  if,  as  we  may  well 
believe,  it  always  has  thus  existed,  then  for  all 
we  can  judge  thus  far,  it  may  be  self-existent. 
We  do  not  see  that  it,  with  such  a  constitution, 
carries  any  evidence  that  it  had  a  beginning  and 
was  created. 

But  it  is  not  quite  settled  that  the  ether  is  such 
a  continuous  substance.  I  have  mentioned  that 
a  famous  Russian  chemist  believed  it  to  be  an 
excessively  thin  gas;  and  that  this  theory  has 
lately  been  developed  by  Doctor  A.  Wegener,  who 
finds  that  coronium,  a  hypothetical  gas  many 
times  lighter  than  hydrogen,  shown  by  the  spec- 
troscope to  exist  in  the  corona  of  the  sun,  is  dis- 
covered also  in  the  flashes  of  light  from  meteors 


HAD  THE  UNIVERSE  A  BEGINNING  ?    47 

and  the  aurora  borealis.  Its  dispersive  power 
would  be  such  that  it  would  escape  the  attraction 
of  the  earth,  and  it  would  spread  itself  in  the  spaces 
above  our  atmosphere.  Doctor  Wegener,  as  pre- 
viously said,  believes  that  it  is  coronium  that  is 
diffused  everywhere,  and  that  it  is  the  light-bear- 
ing medium.  If  such  is  the  true  theory,  then  it 
is  all  the  ether  there  is,  and  it  is  corpuscular,  like 
the  other  gases,  and  does  not  fill  space  continu- 
ously, but  occupies  an  excessively  small  portion 
of  it;  and  then  it  is  not  self -existent,  for  it  does 
not  exist  everywhere,  but  is  contingent  and  had 
a  cause  for  its  existence.  Equally  all  other  the- 
ories such  as  that  which  denies  its  existence  and 
holds  light  to  consist  of  emitted  particles,  can  al- 
low no  evidence  of  self -existence.  For  the  present 
we  must  incline  to  the  prevalent  view  that  ether 
is  continuous,  exists  everywhere,  and  for  all  we 
can  know  may  exist  eternally,  by  its  own  inherent 
necessity,  the  primum  mobile,  the  source  if  not 
the  cause  of  all  things,  even  as  Plato  conceived  of 
space  not  as  a  void  but  a  plenum,  self -existent, 
eternal  as  God,  and  the  material  out  of  which  all 
things  are  made.  The  most  that  we  can  say  is  that 
for  all  we  can  judge  from  the  evidence  open  to  us, 
ether  may  be  necessarily  self -existent  and  eternal, 
as  self -existent  and  eternal  as  the  Being  about 
whose  existence  we  are  making  search,  and  whom 
we  call  God.  Is  ether,  then,  all  the  God  that 
exists  ?    That  requires  further  study. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  STELLAR  UNIVERSE— HAD  IT  A 
CAUSE  ? 

IN  the  previous  chapter  I  found  myself  unable 
to  discover  in  ether,  the  one  all-pervading 
substance  out  of  which  apparently  all  things 
are  made,  any  sure  evidence  that  it  has  a  Creator, 
that  it  is  not  self -existent,  as  eternal  as  the  God 
of  religion  whom  we  have  been  taught  to  look 
upon  as  the  Source  and  Creator  of  all  things.  I 
now  turn  to  ask  of  this  material  world  on  which 
we  live,  and  of  the  worlds  which  astronomy  tells 
of,  whether  they  had  a  beginning  and  a  cause. 
Is  it  true  that  **the  undevout  astronomer  is  mad  "  ? 
We  must  consider  the  material  universe  as  we 
know  it,  in  its  masses  and  in  its  molecular  consti- 
tution. What  has  such  matter  to  tell  us  of  its 
self -existence  or  its  contingency  ? 

And,  first,  we  find  matter  massed  into  huge 
planets  like  our  earth,  or  into  vaster  suns  and 
stars.  If  they  are  self -existent  and  eternal  they 
must  carry  the  evidence  thereof.  They  must 
show  no  time  limit  of  existence,  and  they  must 
show  universality  in  space;  for  what  is  self -exist- 
ent by  its  own  necessity,  must  exhibit  that  neces- 

48 


THE   STELLAR  UNIVERSE  49 

sity  always  and  everywhere.  It  cannot  be  neces- 
sary in  one  part  of  space  and  unnecessary  in  an- 
other part  of  space.  It  must  fill  all  space  as  does 
the  ether  as  far  as  we  know;  and  equally  it  must 
comprehend  all  time — otherwise  it  has  a  cause; 
it  cannot  happen  by  chance,  out  of  nothing. 

That  planets  and  suns  do  not  fill  all  space  is 
the  fact.  Matter  is  not  everywhere,  unless  ether 
is  matter.  The  suns  and  planets  are  separated 
from  each  other  by  vast  interspaces,  so  that  their 
own  bulk,  big  as  it  is,  is  inconsiderable  as  com- 
pared with  the  vacancies  between  them.  So  dis- 
tant is  the  nearest  star  to  us  that  its  point  of  light 
can  be  enlarged  by  no  telescope.  Matter  at  its 
best  fills,  or  appears  to  fill,  only  limited  spaces 
like  that  occupied  by  our  earth  or  our  sim,  spaces 
where  are  aggregated  rocks,  earth,  air,  vapors;  but 
outside  of  them  in  spaces  immeasurably  greater 
is  nothing,  nothing  except  as  ether  is  something. 
If  matter  exists  necessarily,  there  could  be  no 
vacant  spaces.  It  would  exist  everywhere  the 
same.  Instead  of  that  it  exists  exceptionally. 
It  therefore  exists  contingently,  not  necessarily. 
For  existing  as  we  see  it,  it  must  have  had  a  be- 
ginning, a  cause  outside  of  itself. 

That  is  proof  sufficient,  so  far  as  space  is  con- 
cerned; but,  for  fuller  consideration  of  the  great 
question,  let  us  also  ask  what  are  the  facts  acces- 
sible to  us  as  to  the  existence  of  the  universe  of 
matter  in  time.     Can  we  assert  or  deny  that  it 


so        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

has  always  existed  in  time  ?  This  question  does 
not  allow  a  short  answer,  as  does  the  question  as 
to  the  necessary  existence  of  matter  in  space; 
for  the  fact  that  matter  does  evidently  not  exist 
universally  in  space  is  itself  conclusive  of  its  con- 
tingency. 

We  see  the  heavenly  bodies  in  two  states,  one 
intensely  heated  and  emitting  light  like  the  sun 
and  stars,  the  other  not  luminous,  refrigerated, 
like  our  earth  and  moon.  We  know  that  the 
earth  was  once  a  molten  mass  like  the  sun;  but 
it  has  cooled  down  unmeasured  ages  ago,  though 
still  heated  to  its  centre.  We  know  that  the 
larger  planets,  like  Jupiter  and  Saturn,  have  not 
yet  cooled  down  so  completely  as  has  the  earth, 
and  are  surrounded  by  a  thick  envelope  of  vapor 
which  does  not  allow  their  solid  surface  to  be 
seen.  When  we  turn  to  the  stars  we  find  that 
they  appear,  so  far  as  we  can  see  them,  to  be  in 
the  same  condition  as  the  sun,  molten  masses  of 
fire.  But  they  are  not  all  in  quite  the  same  con- 
dition; some  are  larger  than  others,  some  hotter 
than  others,  showing  different  stages  of  condition, 
as  proved  by  the  spectroscope.  Then  there  are 
in  the  heavenly  spaces  invisible  stars  or  planets 
which  have  cooled  down,  like  our  earth,  till  they 
cease  to  be  luminous.  We  know  it  because  we 
have  variable  stars,  whose  light  is  temporarily 
obscured,  as  if  by  some  intervening  lesser  planet 
or  companion  star  that  has  ceased  to  emit  light. 


THE   STELLAR  UNIVERSE  51 

That  there  are  such  we  know  further  from  the 
occasional  appearance  of  temporary  new  stars. 
They  are  explained  by  the  coming  of  two  invisible 
stars,  or  one  of  them  invisible,  together,  drawn 
by  their  mutual  attraction.  Their  colHsion  raises 
them  to  enormous  heat,  and  they  become  visible. 
The  conclusion  is  that  in  the  stellar  universe 
there  are  stars  of  all  stages  of  condition;  multi- 
tudes that  are  like  our  sim,  hotter  or  not  so  hot, 
some  of  lesser  heat  and  dimmer  light,  some  quite 
extinct  as  luminous  stars,  and  for  aught  we  know 
there  are  dead  suns  more  numerous,  perhaps 
vastly  more  numerous  than  the  molten,  visible 
suns.  This  much  is  clear,  that  the  suns,  as  we 
know  them,  have  a  temporary  existence.  They 
have  had  a  beginning  in  time  as  stars  in  their 
present  condition  of  visibility  or  invisibility. 
For  each  one  is  giving  off  heat  constantly  and  re- 
ceiving none,  or  next  to  none,  from  other  stars. 
Our  stm  is  cooling  down,  and  in  the  course  of 
time  must  itself  become  a  dead  sun,  as  invis- 
ible to  the  possible  inhabitants  of  the  planetary 
system  of  Sirius,  if  such  there  will  be,  as  is  the 
earth.  And  the  same  is  true  of  Sirius  and  every 
other  star  in  the  heavens.  Every  one  must  have 
had  a  beginning  as  a  star,  because  the  process  of 
cooling  is  not  completed,  and  the  past  eternity 
of  time  is  sufficient  to  have  completed  it  if  it  had 
had  no  beginning.  The  stars,  as  stars,  are  con- 
tingent in  time,  as  well  as  in  space. 


52        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

But  this  does  not  quite  settle  the  question,  for 
the  fact  that  we  actually  see  before  us  new  stars 
appearing  in  the  heavens  is  evidence  that  a  dead 
star  may  be  revived,  and  renew,  like  the  phoenix, 
its  existence.  If  once  or  twice  in  a  century  we 
see  such  a  tremendous  creation  in  the  heavens, 
we  do  not  know  but  that  in  uncounted  past  eons 
every  star  we  see  was  thus  created,  every  star 
suddenly  bursting  into  flame,  and  then  in  the 
process  of  ages  cooling  its  heat,  dimming  its  fire, 
imtil  it  again  becomes  invisible  and  dead,  await- 
ing its  turn  in  a  fresh  collision  to  repeat  the  course 
of  history  from  secular  heat  to  secular  cold. 
This  at  least  we  are  sure  of,  that  every  star  we 
see,  which  has  not  yet  finished  its  course  and  be- 
come invisible,  has  had  its  beginning  as  such  a 
star  in  a  definite  past  time,  for  it  has  not  yet 
completed  its  range  of  progressive  relapse.  Such 
is  the  case  with  our  sun,  with  every  star.  The 
mathematician  can  calculate  from  the  present 
heat  of  the  sun  and  the  rate  at  which  it  loses  heat 
how  long  it  will  be  before  it  becomes  extinct,  and 
so  for  any  other  star  if  he  can  know  its  condi- 
tions. Each  star  is  on  its  way  to  a  state  which 
it  has  not  yet  reached,  but  which  it  would  have 
reached  if  it  had  existed  from  eternity.  A  mul- 
titude of  stars  have,  in  all  probability  reached 
that  stage  and  to  our  eye  become  extinct.  All  had 
their  beginning;  none  are  eternal. 

But  we  may  ask,  if  the  separate  stars  have  each 


THE  STELLAR   UNIVERSE  53 

had  a  beginning  in  time,  is  that  true  of  the  system 
of  stars  as  a  whole?  May  it  not  have  been  re- 
peatedly and  perpetually  renewing  itself  ?  This 
requires  consideration. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  stellar  system  as  single 
and  tmitary,  after  the  hitherto  usual  manner 
among  astronomers.  Lord  Herschel  knew  that 
stars  were  in  motion,  and  he  conceived  them  as 
all  revolving,  like  our  planets,  about  a  common 
centre.  But  at  present  the  most  advanced  stu- 
dents of  the  starry  heavens  find  not  one,  but  two 
systems  of  stars,  moving  in  different  directions, 
coming  out  of  different  portions  of  space,  and  now 
entangled  together.  The  stars  in  the  Milky  Way 
belong  to  one  system  that  has  yoimger  stars,  show- 
ing helium  lines,  while  the  other  system  is  older. 
This  gives  us  a  different  and  startling  view  of  the 
universe.  With  such  diverse  movements  in  the 
two  systems  there  is  danger,  such  as  there  was 
not  before,  of  the  approach  of  one  star  to  another, 
as  the  course  of  a  star  in  one  system  might  ap- 
proach the  course  of  a  star  in  another.  This  ex- 
plains the  genesis  of  new  stars,  and  provides  a 
way  for  the  regeneration  of  exhausted  stars  and 
the  continuance  of  the  systems  with  their  Hght 
and  heat.  The  two  approaching  dead  stars,  that 
have  in  the  course  of  countless  ages  lost  their  heat 
and  are  thus  invisible,  happen  to  come  within  the 
reach  of  each  other's  attraction,  and  meet  with 
a  velocity  of  four  hundred  miles  a  second;   but, 


54        WHAT  I  BELIEVE   AND  WHY 

having  each  their  own  proper  motion,  they  may 
not  meet  head  on,  but  graze  each  other,  breaking 
off  portions  of  each  which  burst  out  into  the  most 
intense  heat  and  dissolve  in  fiery  vapor,  forming 
a  new  star;  while  the  main  portions  of  the  two 
are  likely  to  fly  away  on  their  altered  courses, 
losing  their  velocity  by  the  backward  pull  of  at- 
traction, and  are  lost  in  space,  while  the  nova, 
first  expanding  into  a  nebula,  then  loses  its  light 
and  ultimately  disappears  to  sight.  Thus  we 
seem  to  see  new  stars  produced,  and  such  may  be 
conceived  to  be  the  cosmic  origin  and  course  of 
all  the  stars  that  we  see  move  through  the  sky. 
But,  even  so,  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  our  uni- 
verse of  visible  stars  could  indefinitely  reproduce 
itself;  only  a  small  fraction  of  stars  approaching 
would  actually  collide.  The  comets  do  not  fall 
into  the  sun,  but  diverge  and  go  on.  So  most 
stars  visible  and  heated  would  escape  each  other 
and  continue  to  give  out  their  heat  and  ultimately 
become  extinct.  That  this  has  not  yet  occurred 
seems  to  be  some  proof  that  the  stellar  system,  or 
systems,  had  a  beginning. 

But  there  is  a  yet  more  serious  point  of  view. 
If  there  are  two  systems  of  stars,  as  Kapteyn  and 
Professor  Boss  tell  us,  then  the  universe  is  not 
unitary  but  dual.  The  two  systems  can  hardly 
be  conceived  as  coming  into  existence  together, 
out  of  any  necessary  inherent  force — each  had  a 
beginning,  and  a  different  contingent  occasion  of 
beginning,  whatever  we  may  call  the  source. 


THE  STELLAR  UNIVERSE  55 

These  two  streams,  or  systems,  of  stars,  we 
are  told,  are  of  different  ages — one  has  newer 
stars  than  the  other,  has  stars  with  hehum  Hnes, 
while  the  other  has  none.  Its  stars  have  not 
through  countless  ages  been  regenerated  whether 
by  collision  or  by  the  absorption  of  nebular  matter, 
or  whatever  the  original  world-stuff  may  have 
been.  If  one  is  older  than  the  other,  and  is  further 
along  in  the  line  of  extinction,  they  had  each  a 
beginning  at  different  times,  and  a  separate  con- 
tingent source  of  beginning,  whatever  we  may  call 
that  source.  Nor  does  it  make  any  difference  if 
we  conceive  of  an  infinite  number  of  such  systems 
far  beyond  our  ken,  for  they  exist  separately,  out 
of  forces  acting  individually  and  not  universally, 
and  so  not  of  necessity  but  contingently.  And 
contingency  means  some  exterior  force,  directing, 
controlHng,  whether  we  call  it  God  or  not. 

I  think  that  the  nature  and  direction  of  move- 
ment of  the  stars  in  the  two  swarms  has  a  bear- 
ing on  our  subject.  It  was  conjectured  by  as- 
tronomers, before  the  existence  of  two  separate 
streams  of  stars  was  known,  that  they  had  all 
their  orbits,  and  were  revolving  about  a  common 
centre.  That  does  not  now  seem  probable,  and 
the  fact  of  the  two  swarms  coming  together  seems 
to  negative  it.  At  their  enormous  distances  gravi- 
tation could  hardly  hold  them  to  a  common  orbit ; 
and  a  common  orbit  of  all  the  stars  would  prevent 
collision.  The  moon  is  held  to  the  earth  by  a 
force  equal  to  a  steel  cable  fifteen  or  twenty  miles 


56        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

in  diameter;  but  attraction  diminishes  as  the 
square  of  the  distance,  and  the  attraction  of  one 
star  to  another,  and  to  their  common  centre  would 
be  insignificant  as  compared  with  their  enormous 
projectile  momentum.  If,  then,  they  are  moving 
directly  through  space  and  not  in  an  orbit,  they 
must  have  passed  through  billions  and  billions  of 
miles  of  space,  and  that  affords  likely  proof  that 
ether  is  infinite  in  space,  for  the  strain  of  ether  is 
supposed  to  be  the  source  of  all  force.  Another 
conclusion  is  that  a  swarm  of  stars  not  moving  in 
orbits  must  even  by  slight  attraction  be  gradu- 
ally drawn  together,  and  in  time  will,  tmless  they 
have  diverse  velocities  so  that  they  will  separate 
from  each  other,  be  brought  to  a  common  centre. 
But  this  has  not  yet  happened.  The  fact  that 
they  are  still  separate  while  still  retained  in  their 
swarms,  and  are  not  yet  drawn  into  one  mass,  is 
evidence  that  our  stellar  universe  has  not  existed 
from  all  eternity,  but  had  a  beginning  in  time  as 
well  as  a  limit  in  space,  and  so  is  not  eternal  and 
self -existent,  but  had  a  cause  outside  of  itself. 

This  indication  is  from  the  side  of  motion. 
We  may  consider  it  somewhat  further  from  the 
side  of  heat. 

It  is  the  nature  of  all  other  forms  of  energy  to 
be  transformed,  under  the  well-known  laws  of 
the  conservation  of  energy,  one  into  another  and 
without  loss.  But  when  any  other  form  of  en- 
ergy is  transformed  into  heat,  it  can  then  be  dis- 


THE  STELLAR  UNIVERSE  57 

sipated  and  lost.  Thus  a  hot  body  is  constantly 
giving  out  heat,  whether  a  candle  or  a  sun.  Its 
heat  radiates  into  space,  and  may  be  captured  by 
some  body  which  it  meets,  or  it  may  be  lost  be- 
cause it  meets  no  object  to  absorb  it.  Thus  the 
earth  and  other  planets  intercept  a  little  of  the 
heat  radiated  by  the  sun,  but  most  of  it  passes 
into  space,  and  is  dissipated  and  lost.  Equally 
every  star  possesses  its  individual  quantum  of 
total  force,  or  energy,  of  which  one  part  is  its 
proper  motion  in  space,  say  a  dozen  or  more  miles 
in  a  second;  the  other  is  its  heat.  Its  heat  is  be- 
ing constantly  dissipated ;  it  passes  off  into  space, 
and  at  last  will  leave  the  star  in  the  condition  of 
absolute  cold,  possessed  of  no  force  except  its  mo- 
tion in  space. 

Thus  the  total  amount  of  energy  in  the  stellar 
universe  represented  by  heat  is  certainly  being 
dissipated,  and  if  not  regenerated  in  some  way 
will  be  finally  exhausted.  The  imi verse  will  rtm 
down;  the  stars  will  all  be  dead  stars.  But,  as 
this  has  not  yet  happened,  it  must  follow  that  the 
universe  had  a  beginning  in  time,  and  therefore 
some  cause  for  its  beginning. 

One  way,  however,  in  which  it  might  occur  to 
us  to  escape  this  conclusion  is,  as  already  indi- 
cated, by  the  generation  of  fresh  force  by  the 
attraction  of  two  approaching  and  colliding  bodies. 
But  this  raises  the  question  whether  there  is  in 
the  case  of  such  attraction  any  real  addition  to 


58        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  total  energy  of  the  universe.  Does  it  con- 
tradict the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy? 
From  any  source,  like  the  attraction  of  gravita- 
tion, can  dissipated  energy  be  restored  ? 

The  attraction  of  gravitation  is  the  greatest  of 
all  the  mysteries  of  physics.  We  call  it  gravita- 
tion, but  giving  it  a  name  does  not  explain  why 
an  apple  falls  to  the  ground.  We  know  of  no  ex- 
planation. We  only  know  that  it  does  fall  to 
the  ground,  and  that  in  every  fraction  of  an  in- 
stant in  its  fall  it  gets  an  increment  of  its  force 
and  velocity.  The  earth  does  not  touch  it ;  noth- 
ing does  touch  it  except  air  and  ether.  Something 
must  move  it  that  touches  it,  but  it  is  not  air  that 
does  it,  for  it  falls  faster  in  a  vacuum  where  there 
is  no  air,  only  ether.  It  seems  to  follow  that 
ether  moves  it,  either  pulls  it  or  pushes  it,  but  why 
or  how  we  do  not  know.  I  suppose  that  ether  is 
the  great  storehouse  of  energy  which  supports  the 
whole  universe.  I  suppose  that  when  an  apple 
falls  to  the  ground,  ether  moves  it,  or  ether- 
strains,  like  the  strain  of  a  rubber  band,  pull  or 
push  it;  that  when  the  moon  or  earth  is  held 
down  to  its  orbit  ether-strains  do  it.  And  I  do 
not  see  that  this  force  has  come  through  any 
transformation  of  any  previous  force.  We  speak 
of  potential  energy,  which  is  simply  the  compres- 
sion for  the  amount  of  attraction  which  would 
draw  an  apple  downward  if  it  were  free  to  fall 
from  the  tree.     It  is  measured  by  what  we  caill 


THE   STELLAR  UNIVERSE  59 

weight,  and  its  amount  depends  on  its  distance 
from  the  attracting  body. 

Now,  a  great  gain  in  kinetic  energy  is  acquired 
when  two  stars  moving  at  the  rate  of  ten  or 
twenty  miles  a  second  approach  each  other  until 
their  velocity  is  increased  to  perhaps  four  hun- 
dred miles  a  second;  and  I  cannot  see  that  any 
corresponding  amount  of  energy  has  been  lost  to 
balance  it.  It  would  seem  that  this  new  energy 
has  been  provided  out  of  the  inexhaustible  source 
of  all  energy,  the  force  within  the  ether.  And  this 
new  energy  of  motion  is  being  transferred  by  the 
collision  of  two  stars  into  vast  amounts  of  heat. 
This  added  energy  thus  created  might  in  a  mea- 
sure balance  the  total  energy  lost  by  the  dissipa- 
tion of  heat ;  and  in  this  way  the  argument  for  a 
beginning  in  time  might  be  more  or  less  invali- 
dated. Yet  it  is  not  clear  that  the  constant  loss 
of  heat  would  or  could  be  thus  balanced  and  re- 
stored. The  countless  stars  are  giving  out  heat 
constantly,  while  the  cases  of  new  stars  are  not 
only  few  and  rare,  but  so  far  as  we  have  recorded 
them  they  are  temporary.  They  soon  fade  away. 
They  seem  to  have  added  little  to  the  sum  of 
energy  in  the  universe  during  their  brief  existence, 
while  the  loss  of  energy  by  the  dissipation  of  heat 
is  constant  and  enormous. 

In  another  way  we  could  imagine  a  condition 
in  which  dissipated  heat  would  be  restored.  If 
we  could  think  of  ether  as  limited  in  space,  and  its 


6o        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

limits  a  sharp  wall,  then  dissipated  heat  might 
be  reflected  back  again ;  yet,  even  so,  only  an  in- 
finitesimal portion  of  this  reflected  heat  would  be 
caught  by  the  stars,  unless  we  were  allowed  to 
conceive  of  the  dead  stars  as  so  numerous  as  to  fill 
the  whole  sky.  This  is  so  improbable  and  so 
destitute  of  evidence  that  we  may  dismiss  it  from 
consideration.  Even  so,  the  heat  restored  would 
leave  the  stars  still  invisible  and  dead,  and  would 
only  increase  the  argument  for  the  final  extinction 
of  the  stars  yet  visible  to  us. 

Thus  the  conclusion  derived  from  as  wide  a 
study  of  the  evidence  as  our  present  knowledge 
of  the  stellar  universe  yields  to  us  would  make  it 
appear  pretty  clearly  that  this  universe  must  fin- 
ally expend  its  energy  and  run  down  like  a  clock. 
The  fact  that,  notwithstanding  all  changes  and 
renewals,  it  has  not  yet  run  down  is  evidence  that 
this  universe  had  a  beginning  in  time,  and  there- 
fore had  a  cause  for  beginning,  a  great  Cause  out- 
side of  itself,  some  such  cause  as  we  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  conceiving  under  the  word  God. 
The  conditions  of  time  equally  with  those  of 
space  indicate  that  the  stellar  universe  does  not 
exist  by  any  inherent  necessity  of  its  being.  It 
is  limited  in  space,  and  it  appears  to  be  equally 
limited  in  time.  It  is  finite,  contingent,  condi- 
tioned, had  a  beginning  and  a  Cause. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE  ATOMIC  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE 
UNIVERSE 

4FTER  having  considered  matter  in  its  masses, 
r\  as  worlds  and  sims,  I  return  to  question  it 
as  to  its  constituent  atoms.  Do  they  give 
any  testimony  either  as  to  their  necessary  exist- 
ence or  as  to  their  contingency  ? 

And  first,  what  are  these  chemical  atoms  of 
which  all  things  are  made  ?  They  are  some  eighty 
in  nimiber,  or  have  been  so  regarded  until  lately, 
ultimate  atoms,  such  as  oxygen,  hydrogen,  carbon, 
gold,  iron,  and  the  rest.  How  long  they  have  ex- 
isted we  do  not  know,  but  that  they  do  not  exist 
by  any  inherent  necessity  we  know  with  certainty 
from  the  fact  that  they  are,  each  one  of  them  or 
all  of  them  together,  strictly  Hmited  in  space,  like 
the  worlds  that  are  made  out  of  them.  No  one 
of  them  occupies  all  space.  Where  one  of  them 
is  the  rest  are  not.  They  occupy  a  relatively 
small,  an  exceedingly  small  fraction  of  all  space. 
They  are  themselves  excessively  minute  dots,  or 
points,  within  surrounding  space,  and,  as  has  been 
said  of  them,  they  have  the  appearance  of  being 
manufactured  objects.     Because  they  are  such, 

6i 


62        WHAT   I   BELIEVE   AND  WHY 

because  they  do  not  exist  everywhere  by  their 
own  necessity  of  existence,  they  are  not  eternal — 
they  had  a  beginning  in  time,  a  cause. 

We  further  know  of  certain  individual  chemical 
atoms  that  they  have  not  always  existed,  but  had 
a  beginning.  Radium  and  several  other  elements 
that  have  a  high  combining  weight  of  over  two 
hundred  are  constantly  and  slowly  disintegrating, 
breaking  up  by  emanations  into  elements  of  smaller 
combining  weight.  Thus  radium  gives  off  helium, 
and  uranium  and  thorium  also  are  unstable  and 
give  off  their  products.  But  they  still  exist  un- 
exhausted in  the  earth.  They  are  steadily  losing 
bulk,  but  are  not  all  gone.  They  would  have  been 
exhausted  long  ago  if  they  had  always  existed. 
They  are  not  eternal;  they  had  a  beginning,  a 
cause,  in  time. 

But  there  is  something  more  to  be  said  of  them. 
They  are  so  related  to  each  other  in  the  increasing 
and  regular  order  of  their  combining  weight,  under 
what  is  called  Mendeleeff 's  law,  that  they  appear 
to  be  themselves  composite,  made  up  of  smaller 
ultimate,  or  more  nearly  ultimate,  atoms.  That 
such  is  the  fact  in  the  case  of  some  of  them  is 
proved  by  their  actual  decomposition,  as  in  the 
case  of  radium.  This  sends  us  back  to  the 
question  whether  these  smaller  and  perhaps  orig- 
inal atomlets  are  made  in  time,  or  are  themselves 
eternal  because  self -existent.  We  are  told  that 
there  are  a  thousand  of  them  in  one  atom  of  hydro- 


THE  ATOMIC  CONSTITUTION        63 

gen,  the  simplest  of  all  the  eighty  elements,  that 
they  carry  each  an  electric  charge,  and  that  they 
escape  as  ions  in  chemical  reactions.  Now  what 
are  these  apparently  primal,  infinitesimal  elec- 
trons, as  they  are  called,  out  of  which  the  eighty 
chemical  elements,  and  so  the  whole  universe  of 
earth  and  stars,  are  made  ? 

It  is  not  fully  known,  but  the  prevailing  belief 
is  that  they  are  made  out  of  the  ether  itself,  and 
are  of  no  different  material  and  stuff.  They  are 
spoken  of  as  perhaps  whorls,  vortices,  little  mael- 
stroms within  the  ether;  and  they  attract  each 
other,  and  their  combinations  form  the  chemical 
elements,  oxygen,  carbon,  and  the  rest,  a  thou- 
sand of  them  dancing  about  in  one  atom  of  hydro- 
gen, and  over  two  hundred  times  as  many  in  a 
complex  atom  of  radium.  Why  they  attract  each 
other  and  unite  definitely  in  various  sorts  of  atoms 
with  individual  qualities  and  powers  we  do  not 
know;  but  we  do  know  that  every  one  of  the 
eighty  atoms  is  made  up  of  these  minuter  elec- 
trons; and  it  is  probable  that  these  electrons  are 
nothing  else  but  points  of  movement,  and  so  of 
force,  in  ether. 

Now,  ether  we  have  found  to  be  universal,  fill- 
ing, so  far  as  we  can  judge,  all  space  and,  for  aught 
we  can  judge,  always  in  existence,  from  before 
the  existence  of  all  things.  We  can  discover  in 
its  conditions  no  evidence  that  it  is  not  uncreated, 
self-existent,  and  eternal.     What  can  we  say  of, 


64        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

these  modifications  in  it,  these  whorls,  vortices,  or 
rings  in  it  which  we  call  electrons  ? 

Precisely  what  we  say  of  the  eighty  elements. 
They  have  every  appearance  of  being  contingent. 
They  exist  here,  and  not  there.  They  are  found 
in  swarms  in  an  atom  of  raditnn,  in  a  molecule  of 
water,  in  the  mass  of  the  earth,  and  in  the  thinner 
medium  of  the  air.  But  nowhere  that  they  are 
found  do  they  fill  the  space.  They  have  room  to 
move  in  an  atom  of  hydrogen ;  they  are  very  widely 
separated  in  the  air;  outside  of  the  atmosphere 
that  surrotinds  the  earth  there  are  none.  In  the 
interstellar  spaces  there  exists  simple  ether,  un- 
modified, not  deflected  into  that  force  which  ap- 
pears in  the  vortical  electron.  In  the  vast  spaces 
between  the  stars  are  no  atoms,  no  electrons. 
Only  at  rare  places,  where  there  is  a  star,  do  we 
find  the  force  existing  which  has  caused  the  ether 
to  develop  vortices,  electrons,  and  these  to  com- 
bine into  atoms,  and  these  again  into  worlds. 
This  fact  is  of  immense  importance.  It  proves 
that  matter,  as  we  know  it  apart  from  ether,  has 
no  inherent  power  of  self -existence ;  for  it  has 
come  into  existence  as  electrons  only  at  excep- 
tional locations  within  space.  Whether  ether  ex- 
ists by  its  own  necessity  we  may  not  know;  we 
have  no  evidence  to  deny  it ;  but  we  do  see  plainly 
that,  however  ether  exists,  it  does  not  through  any 
necessity  of  its  own  project  itself  into  whorls  of 
material  electrons  and  atoms,  for  it  does  not  do 


THE   ATOMIC   CONSTITUTION        65 

so  everyivhere.  Matter,  even  in  its  most  original, 
primal,  subatomic  forms,  is  exceptional,  occasional, 
and  therefore  not  necessary.  It  has  a  cause,  an 
outside  cause;  a  cause  antecedent  to  itself,  older 
than  itself,  and  different  from  the  material,  the 
ether,  out  of  which  it  is  made. 

An  objection  which  might  have  been  made  to 
the  proof  that  atoms  had  a  beginning  in  time  is 
not  valid  as  against  electrons.  It  might  be  said 
that  atoms  may  have  had  an  indefinite  number  of 
beginnings.  It  might  be  that  when  a  dead  sun 
is  regenerated  with  the  most  intense  heat  all  the 
chemical  atoms  in  it  might  be  disintegrated  and 
resolved  into  their  simplest  constituent  element, 
just  as  coronium  not  yet  found  on  the  earth  ap- 
pears in  the  most  heated  outrushes  of  flame  in 
the  sun's  corona.  Very  true.  It  may  be  that 
in  the  collision  of  two  dead  or  living  stars  the  re- 
sultant heat  would  be  so  extreme  that  all  the 
chemical  atoms,  even  hydrogen,  would  be  broken 
up  and  disappear.  But  the  material  out  of  which 
they  are  composed,  the  final  electrons,  would  re- 
main as  they  were  imtil  at  a  lowering  tempera- 
ture they  were  recombined.  These  ultimate  elec- 
trons, no  matter  through  how  many  dissipations 
they  have  passed,  still  remain  the  same  local, 
manufactured,  contingent  points  of  force,  carry- 
ing in  themselves  the  evidence  that  they  exist  by 
no  necessity  in  themselves  and  are  not  eternal, 
but  have  an  exterior  cause. 


66        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

And  here  I  cannot  but  stop  to  marvel  at  the 
mystery  of  the  forces  somehow  imbedded  in  the 
charge  of  electricity  that  gives  its  push  and  pull 
to  that  infinitesimal,  darting,  approaching,  re- 
treating point — or  shall  I  say  whorl  of  ether  which 
we  call  an  electron.  What  makes  it  dance  so  ? 
How  could  those  countless  atomlets,  those  infinite 
infinitesimals,  all  identical,  having  the  same  charge 
of  force,  combine  in  such  strange  ways  ?  Why 
should  a  thousand  of  them  appear  to  us  as  hydro- 
gen, and  twelve  thousand  of  them,  all  just  the 
same,  appear  as  carbon,  and  thirty-two  thousand 
as  sulphur,  and  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven 
thousand  as  gold,  and  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  thousand  as  radium  ?  And  take  carbon, 
composed  of  the  same  number  of  identical  elec- 
trons, and  yet  somehow  appearing  sometimes  as 
charcoal,  sometimes  as  graphite,  and  again  as 
diamond.  If  it  was  said  long  ago,  before  we  heard 
of  electrons,  that  the  atom  looks  like  a  manufac- 
tured body,  it  looks  so  all  the  more  now  that  we 
know  what  it  is  made  of. 

But  I  must  recall  myself  to  remember  that 
wonder  is  no  evidence.  What  is  of  evidence  is 
the  clear  fact  that  these  atoms,  and  these  elec- 
trons that  compose  them,  are  not  self -existent. 
They  have  a  cause  for  existence  outside  of  them- 
selves, are  contingent.  Yet  let  us  consider  for  a 
moment  the  strange  fitnesses  of  these  chemical 
elements,  eighty  or  so  of  them,  differentiated  out 


THE  ATOMIC  CONSTITUTION        67 

of  undifferentiated  electrons,  made  to  combine, 
as  of  their  own  will  in  so  many  useful  ways,  as 
if  the  parts  of  a  complicated  machine  or  engine 
should  of  their  own  force  leap  to  fit  and  adjust 
themselves  into  their  proper  places.  These  ele- 
ments, all  made  of  the  same  stuff,  possess  each 
their  separate,  discrete  properties  and  attributes, 
their  varying  attractions,  and  are  capable  of  com- 
bining with  each  other  in  definite  proportions,  pro- 
ducing new  substances,  each  of  which  has  its  own 
peculiar  qualities,  acid,  base,  salt,  whatever  they 
may  be,  and  these,  again,  fitted  for  new  combina- 
tions under  definite,  fixed  laws.  Thus  is  created 
an  extraordinary  system  of  gases  and  liquids  and 
crystalline  solids,  fitted  to  each  other,  all  congru- 
ous, and  each  depending  for  its  existence  on  in- 
ternal congruities  without  which  it  could  not 
exist.  No  one  knows  this  so  well  as  does  the 
chemist,  and  the  chemist  wonders  at  the  attrac- 
tions and  delicate  adjustments  which  go  to  make 
up  the  crystalline  and  colloid  substances,  the 
liquids  and  gases,  out  of  which  this  world  and  all 
worlds  are  made.  I  do  not  just  now  speak  of  the 
adaptations  of  these  various  substances  for  the 
sustentation  of  physical  life — that  is  another 
matter — but  of  the  amazing  succession  of  beauti- 
ful laws  under  which  all  these  things  have  been 
produced,  all  developing  themselves  or  somehow 
developed,  out  of  what  ?  Out  of  the  minute, 
identical  atomies,  of  which  atoms  are  composed, 


68        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

and  all  depending  for  their  production  on  the 
movements  and  attractions  and  forces  which  have 
come  to  be  possessed  by  these  final  elemental  elec- 
trons. To  me  that  is  quite  as  wonderful  as  is  the 
profusion  and  the  variety  of  life,  vegetable  and 
animal,  which  has  filled  the  earth  through  all  the 
geologic  ages.  And  when  I  think  that  all  chem- 
ical and  all  mechanical  forces,  and  all  the  forces 
of  gravitation,  must  have  issued  primarily,  with 
all  their  developments,  fire,  wind,  storm,  thimder, 
tides,  light,  heat,  electricity,  the  daily,  annual,  and 
secular  movements  and  revolutions  of  planets, 
suns,  and  stars,  out  of  the  initial,  infinitesimal  but 
combined  yet  inexplicable  forces  that  have  some- 
how got  attached  here  and  there,  only  here  and 
there,  to  electrons  which  have  managed  somehow 
to  get  segregated  and  concreted  out  of  impalpable 
ether,  all  forming  a  nicely  co-ordinated  system  of 
tmiversal  nature,  the  marvel  has  grown  beyond 
expression.  The  most  amazing,  most  unaccount- 
able fact  in  all  nature,  next  to  the  limited  existence 
of  matter,  is  the  self-acting  motility  of  the  elec- 
trons. Nothing  pushes  them;  Hke  little  demons 
they  push  themselves.  Nothing  stops  them;  they 
keep  in  perpetual  motion.  On  their  ceaseless  mo- 
tion which  has  the  appearance  of  vitality,  depend 
all  other  forces  unless  it  be  gravitation.  These 
are  the  composite  of  the  subatomic  forces  of  these 
electrons.  What  makes  them  move  ?  No  physi- 
cist can  tell.     He  can  only  say  it  is  their  nature. 


THE  ATOMIC  CONSTITUTION        69 

Hardly  less  inscrutable  is  the  combination  of  these 
ultimate  identical  electrons  into  the  eighty  diverse 
elements,  with  their  following  fixed  and  regulated 
combinations  under  definite  laws  of  chemical  at- 
tractions into  the  concreted  diverse  substances  of 
more  complicated  order  that  compose  the  worlds. 

Thus  connected,  thus  dependent,  the  universe 
is  all  the  same  at  bottom,  one  system,  composed 
of  the  same  electrons,  the  same  chemical  elements, 
creating  the  same  substances,  under  the  same  laws, 
in  all  worlds,  to  the  most  distant  ''reach  of  the 
outmost  sim  through  utter  darkness  hurled."  Is 
this  all  chance  ?  But  we  know  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  chance.  Why  did  the  whorls,  or  vor- 
tices, or  strains,  that  made  the  electrons  all  come 
alike,  separating  by  regiments  to  form  atoms  of 
hydrogen,  and  by  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
to  form  other  elements  ?  Why  do  they  carry  the 
same  charge  of  electricity  ?  Or  if  there  are  two 
kinds  of  electricity,  one  positive  and  one  negative, 
why  two  ?  That  makes  it  all  the  more  wonderful 
and  the  more  evidently  contingent. 

From  whatever  point  of  view  we  look  at  our 
universe,  electron,  atom,  molecule,  or  mass,  earth 
or  stars,  our  total  survey  brings  us  to  one  conclu- 
sion, that  all  is  contingent,  that  all  have  at  some 
point  of  time  come  into  being,  that  all  have  had 
an  external  and  not  an  internal  cause  for  existence. 
What  that  cause  is  we  have  not  yet  found  out, 
but  this  seems  clear,  that  the  material  imiverse, 


70        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

as  we  know  it,  is  not  self-made,  self -existent, 
eternal,  but  is  dependent  for  its  existence  on  some- 
thing that  went  before  and  had  the  power  to 
produce  it. 

Was  that  pre-existent  something  that  had  power 
to  produce  it  the  ether,  which  is  the  material,  we 
are  told,  out  of  which  all  these  things  are  made  ? 
It  clearly  is  not  the  ether.  To  be  sure,  the  ether 
appears,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  to  be  infinite  in 
space,  and  may  be  equally  infinite  in  time.  But 
it  is  essentially  material,  has  material  qualities, 
is  transformed  into  material  things,  has  no  will 
to  transform  itself.  Nor  does  it  transform  itself 
into  resistant,  concrete  matter  by  any  inherent 
necessity  within  itself,  for  it  is  transformed  only 
occasionally  and  sparingly.  The  great  stellar 
spaces  remain  as  ether  untransformed.  Only  in 
occasional  and  selected  spots  has  ether  been  trans- 
formed into  worlds;  and  this  change  has  been 
made  not  by  the  ether  itself,  but  out  of  ether  by 
some  extraneous  power  working  upon  it.  And 
this  whole  universe  of  ours  has  been  produced  on 
one  pattern,  out  of  the  same  electrons  and  ele- 
ments, under  precisely  the  same  laws,  and  of  pre- 
cisely the  same  materials.  It  is  thus  one  universe, 
distributed  in  space,  filling  in  its  total  of  matter 
but  the  most  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  space  in 
which  it  moves.  It  is  all  of  it,  all  except  ether, 
contingent,  temporal,  had  its  beginning,  is  local- 
ized in  space,  had  some  cause  for  existence  apart 


THE  ATOMIC  CONSTITUTION        71 

from  itself  or  the  ether  in  which  it  floats.  It  must 
go  back  for  its  origin  to  some  other  self-existent 
force,  whatever  it  may  be,  something  else  self- 
existent  besides  the  ether  out  of  which  it  is  made. 
Something  is  eternal.  We  cannot  comprehend 
beginninglessness  in  time,  but  it  is  a  fact  and  we 
must  accept  it.  Something  always  was  because 
something  now  is.  It  could  not  have  come  out  of 
nothing,  for  out  of  nothing  nothing  can  be  born. 
That  primal  something  is  back  of  matter  and  back 
of  ether.  It  has  worked  upon  ether  selectively, 
acting  upon  it  only  locally  and  sparingly,  giving 
definite  movements  and  powers  to  its  derivative 
electrons,  but  such  powers  as  are  fitted  to  form 
intricate  combinations  into  atomic  systems,  many 
thousands  of  them  moving  in  orderly  arrangement 
in  a  single  chemical  element,  and  then  combining 
further  into  all  the  forms  of  matter  of  which  the 
worlds  are  made.  Whether  as  electrons,  atoms, 
or  systems,  they  are  not  haphazard,  they  have  the 
appearance  of  being  manufactured,  and  they  are 
organized  into  what  appears  to  be  an  orderly 
scheme,  as  if  prearranged  by  an  antecedent  cause, 
a  cause  that  has  will,  that  has  intelligence,  such 
a  cause  as  is  embraced  in  the  term  God. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   PUZZLE   OF  THE   INFINITE 

INFINITY  is  not  a  problem;  it  is  a  fact.  It 
can  be  puzzled  over,  if  we  choose,  but  there 
it  is,  not  to  be  denied,  staring  us  in  the  face. 
It  is  of  no  use  for  me  to  puzzle  myself  trying  to 
conceive  the  limits  of  the  infinites.  There  are 
such  things  as  space  and  time;  I  know  it,  and 
time  and  space  are  limitless,  have  no  beginning 
and  no  end.  I  know  that,  too,  and  yet  I  cannot 
understand  how  out  of  that  which  had  no  begin- 
ning I  could  have  reached  this  particular  point 
in  space  and  time.  The  difficulty  is  more  about 
time  than  space;  for  space  is  static.  I  can  in 
imagination  go  anywhere  and  find  room.  But 
time  is  not  permanent,  static.  It  is  an  infinitely 
broad  current,  an  ocean  without  bounds,  moving, 
ever  moving  onward,  onward  from  back  of  all  con- 
ceivable beginning.  How  could  I  have  happed 
upon  existence  just  now,  in  this  little  inch  of 
endlessness,  and  my  father  in  his  inch,  instead 
of  my  succession  and  his  occurring  an  infinite 
million  of  ages  back  ?  But  here  I  am,  and  why 
should  I  try  to  puzzle  myself  with  the  infinite 
past  when  I  know  for  certain  the  present  ?    Why 

72 


THE    PUZZLE    OF    THE    INFINITE     73 

seek  to  track  back  to  its  source  the  beginning  of 
iinbeginning  time  ?  I  may  try  to  explain  it  to 
myself  by  thinking  of  time  as  a  circle  which  has 
no  beginning  because  it  repeats  itself,  but  that  is 
fallacious.  Time  is  no  cycHc  revolution.  It  is  a 
sweep  ever  forward,  never  backward;  never  like 
the  Egyptian  figure  of  eternity,  the  serpent  swal- 
lowing its  tail.  I  am  here;  I  am  now — that  fact 
I  know,  and  the  puzzle  how  I  came  to  be  here  and 
now  need  not  distract  me  from  the  fact.  The 
fact  of  the  infinite  is  simple  and  clear,  easy  to 
apprehend;  but  the  how  and  why  of  it,  its  com- 
pass and  extent,  is  past  finite  comprehension. 

We  come  upon  this  puzzle  of  the  infinite  when 
it  occurs  to  us  to  ask,  When  did  the  great  prime 
cause  begin  to  create  the  universe  ?  Was  it  in 
time,  or  was  it  from  all  eternity  ?  Our  argument 
has  shown  us  that  all  the  forms  of  visible  matter 
we^know  of  are  contingent,  dependent ;  but  it  has 
set  no  time  for  their  beginning,  no  time  when 
electrons  and  atoms  began  to  be  concreted  out 
of  ether;  only  that  the  present  forms  of  the  worlds 
had  a  beginning  in  time;  but  we  did  not  know 
how  many  times  the  stars  and  suns  had  died  into 
the  cold  of  frigid  space  and  been  regenerated  as 
nebiilae  and  suns  to  ' '  trick  their  beams ' '  and  ' '  flame 
in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky." 

Some  great  primal  creative  cause  must  have 
existed  from  all  eternity.  Now  can  we  believe 
that  this  cause  existed  from  an  eternity  before 


74        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

creating,  and  that  at  a  certain  point  in  that  eter- 
V  nity  it  began  to  create  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  think 
I  so.  If  it  was  good  to  create  at  any  definite  time 
f  it  must  have  been  good  to  create  at  any  previous 
time,  and  what  was  good  would  have  been  done. 
■  It  would  seem  likely  that  it  would  always  create. 
And  I  might  also  say  just  as  well  that  if  it  was 
good  to  create  a  stellar  system  in  one  portion  of 
space,  it  would  be  good  to  create  elsewhere. 
Apart  from  the  inexplicable  puzzle  of  a  past  eter- 
nity of  time,  which  we  cannot  deny  except  by  as- 
serting a  relativity  of  time  tantamount  to  denying 
that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  time,  we  can  only 
say  that  the  universe  now  exists,  in  time,  and  that 
its  existence  is  not  automatic,  but  depends  on  the 
force  of  some  cause  essentially  antecedent  to  it, 
but  whether  antecedent  in  time,  or  only  logically 
antecedent,  as  the  rising  sun  is  antecedent  to  the 
dawn,  we  cannot  say.  It  may  be  that  inasmuch 
as  a  great  creative  cause  has  existed  from  all  eter- 
nity, it  must  have  also  acted  creatively  from  all 
eternity.  In  that  case  we  might  properly  con- 
ceive of  the  universe,  not  in  its  present  transitory 
and  cyclical  condition,  but  in  some  form  as  eter- 
nal, as  eternal  as  its  great  Cause. 


CHAPTER  VII 
A  UNIVERSE  FITTED   FOR  LIFE 

Er  us  now  return  for  a  little  space  to  our  own 
world,  the  earth,  and  ask  a  further  question 
as  to  its  composition  as  bearing  on  its  adap- 
tation for  the  residence  of  man,  the  lower  animals, 
and  plant  life. 

A  world  without  beings  to  use  it  would  not  be 
worth  while.  It  needs  vegetable  and  animal  life 
to  make  it  useful.  At  any  rate,  we  know  it  is 
useful  because  it  supports  such  life.  To  be  sure, 
we  do  not  know  that  Venus  and  Mars  have  in- 
habitants. Very  likely  they  have,  for  they  have 
air  and  water.  The  moon  has  none,  nor  probably 
Jupiter  and  Saturn,  and  certainly  not  the  sun. 
Yet  planets  that  have  none  are  of  some  value  to 
us,  and  seem  to  be  in  preparation  for  the  time 
when  they  may  possibly  be  inhabited.  But  if  not, 
they  are  yet  not  useless  to  us,  and  the  sun  is  our 
mighty  servant,  the  steward  of  all  our  life.  While 
I  presume  there  are  innumerable  inhabited  worlds, 
yet  if  the  earth  were  the  only  one  the  service  to 
us  on  this  Httle  world  of  all  the  radiant  heavens 
would  not  be  imworthy,  for  I  believe  that  an 

75 


76        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

infant's  single  will  is  of  more  value  than  the  sum 
of  all  cosmic  forces  through  all  the  celestial  ages, 
so  much  is  mind  superior  to  matter.  The  question 
of  the  composition  of  our  world  as  related  to  the 
uses  of  man  then  deserves  consideration. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  world — earth,  sea,  and  air 
— is  made  out  of  materials  that  fit  it  most  nicely 
to  the  life  of  man,  animals,  and  plants;  or  shall 
we  say  that  our  world  of  life  has  been  evolved 
to  fit  the  physical  conditions  that  the  earth  pre- 
sents ? 

The  present  actual  composition  of  our  world, 
its  air,  soil  and  seas,  is  one  out  of  a  countless  num- 
ber of  permutations  of  elements,  whether  in  their 
relative  amount  or  in  their  presence  or  absence, 
which  are  conceivable,  and  of  which  only  the 
present  one  would  support  such  life  as  we  see.  A 
million  others  would  be  fatal.  We  may  properly 
ask  whether  under  other  conditions  evolution 
could  possibly  support  life. 

The  earth  might  have  been  made  all  out  of 
gold  or  silver  or  iron.  Then  there  could  have 
been  no  life.  Or  if  we  had  all  the  present  ingredi- 
'  ents  which  we  find  necessary  for  life,  carbon,  lime, 
clay,  nitrogen  and  all  the  rest,  but  only  oxygen 
and  hydrogen,  or  either  alone  missing,  we  cannot 
conceive  how  life  could  exist. 

Of  the  many  ingredients  needed  to  maintain 
life  as  we  see  it  here,  I  may  take  three  as  represent- 
ing the  rest,  air,  water,  and  carbonic  acid.     They 


A  UNIVERSE  FITTED   FOR  LIFE     77 

are  exquisitely  fitted  to  support  life,  unless  life 
has  been  so  developed  as  to  make  use  of  them. 
Could  physical  life  have  existed  without  them? 
Imagine  the  absence  of  water  which  fills  the  oceans 
and  soaks  the  land,  and  constitutes  the  chief  in- 
gredient in  both  animal  and  vegetable  life.  No 
other  liquid — and  chemists  know  them — could 
take  its  place  as  the  vehicle  of  life.  Suppose  there 
were  no  water,  or  think  of  any  other  liquid,  sul- 
phuric acid,  mercury,  alcohol,  chloroform  taking 
its  place — not  one  of  them  has  the  neutral  quality 
with  the  power  of  dissolving  other  substances  in 
sap  or  blood.  The  fact  is  that  no  known  liquid 
but  water  could  sustain  life.  Then  the  great 
abimdance  of  water  gives  a  stability  of  tempera- 
ture necessary  for  life,  through  its  extraordinarily 
high  specific  heat.  Its  evaporation  prevents  sud- 
den, destructive  changes  from  heat  to  cold,  ab- 
sorbing heat  in  evaporation,  and  giving  it  out 
again  in  liquefying  as  cloud  or  rain,  and  in  freez- 
ing; otherwise  the  earth  would  be  uninhabitable. 
Water  is  needed  for  life,  and  is  fitted  and  pro- 
vided for  it. 

Equally  we  cannot  imagine  life  without  air.  In 
a  vacuum  it  could  not  exist.  No  other  gas  or 
combination  of  gases  would  do.  Just  its  proper- 
ties are  needed  to  draw  up  and  support  the  evap- 
orated water  and  give  rain  to  the  earth.  The  air 
is  a  mixture  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen,  with  a  Httle 
carbonic  acid  which  is  poisonous  in  large  quan- 


78        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

titles,  but  harmless  in  small  quantities.  How 
happened  nature  to  supply  oxygen  and  nitrogen  ? 
Why  not  all  nitrogen  instead  of  four-fifths  ? 
There  are  many  other  gases,  but  not  one  that  will 
support  animal  life  except  oxygen.  Is  it  not  ex- 
traordinary that  just  this  gas  should  have  been 
provided  in  the  air,  and  in  just  the  right  dilution  ? 
No  other  would  do.  But  may  we  suppose  that 
if  other  gases  had  filled  the  place  of  air  some  other 
form  of  life  than  ours  would  have  been  developed, 
quite  unlike  ours  ?  Certainly  nothing  made  of 
flesh  and  blood.  For  we  know  these  other  gases. 
We  know  that  life  cannot  and  could  not  be  sup- 
ported in  an  atmosphere  of  pure  nitrogen,  which 
is  too  inert  to  form  the  necessary  combinations. 
Suppose  it  were  all  chlorine  or  fluorine  gas:  it 
would  consume  everything  living;  or  nitrous  oxid 
or  ammonia,  or  any  other  gas  that  can  be  men- 
tioned, say  helium  or  argon.  Any  one  would  be 
fatal  to  any  form  of  life.  Could  there  be  living 
bodies  not  of  such  flesh  and  blood  as  ours  that 
might  have  originated  by  evolution  in  a  world  of 
some  other  sort  of  air  ?  It  appears  impossible. 
Other  worlds  have  the  same  sort  of  chemistry  as 
ours;  and  we  know  the  gases  and  the  solids  as 
well,  and  they  cannot  cause  growth.  They  can 
create  crystals  by  the  superficial  deposit  of  layer 
on  layer,  but  not  vital  growth.  Only  the  unmate- 
rial  could  live,  what  we  call  a  soul.  The  surprising 
fitness  of  this  one  mixture  in  air  of  oxygen  and 


A  UNIVERSE  FITTED  FOR  LIFE     79 

nitrogen  for  life  is  a  fact  which  suggests  intelligent 
ptirpose  in  fitting  the  world  for  life. 

Carbonic  acid,  borne  by  the  air  and  the  water, 
is  the  third  condition  of  life  of  which  I  would 
speak.  It,  too,  has  a  special  fitness  for  its  place. 
Life  fits  itself  to  it,  as  it  does  to  air  and  water; 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  they  are  primordially 
fixed  in  a  fitness  for  it,  as  the  hand  to  the  glove, 
as  well  as  the  glove  to  the  hand.  Carbonic  acid 
is  everywhere  in  air  and  water,  and  supplies  the 
substance  of  all  plants,  which  retain  its  carbon 
and  give  off  its  oxygen,  just  as  animals  keep  the 
balance  by  taking  the  oxygen  and  giving  off  car- 
bonic acid.  It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  of  any 
form  of  vegetable  life  dependent  on  any  other 
element  than  the  carbon  of  carbonic  acid.  We 
have  heard  of  living  skeletons,  but  a  body  made 
up  of  bones  could  hardly  live. 

Can  it  be  supposed  that  these  three  necessities 
for  any  form  of  bodily  life,  water,  air,  and  carbonic 
acid — and  many  others  might  be  mentioned — 
could  have  met  together  by  accident,  without 
purpose  ?  Professor  L.  J.  Henderson,  of  Har- 
vard University,  says  that  there  is  not  one  chance 
in  millions  of  millions  that  the  many  qualities 
and  unique  properties  possessed  by  water  and 
carbonic  acid  which  occur  thus  simultaneously  in 
their  elements,  could  have  met,  except  through 
the  operation  of  a  natural  law  that  connects  them, 
whether  called  impetus,  or  natural  theology,  or 


So        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

teleological  purpose.     To  me  all  this  amazing  fit- 
ness seems  most  easily  explicable  on  the  assump- 
^tion  of  a  purposive  Being  antecedent  to  all  matter 
and  all  physical  law. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   MYSTERY   OF   LIFE 

IN  previous  chapters  I  have  aimed  to  make  it 
clear  that  our  physical  universe,  whether 
looked  at  in  its  minutest  atoms  or  in  its  total 
starry  systems,  gives  clear  evidence  that  it  is  not 
self -existent,  but  had  an  external  source.  Noth-\ 
ing  exists  by  its  own  necessity,  and  nothing  by 
chance.  Some  superior  power  is  the  source  of 
physical  matter  and  of  physical  laws.  I  now  turn 
to  that  other  and  higher  world  of  life,  and  ask 
what  evidence  it  has  to  offer  as  to  its  origin.  Do 
the  familiar  laws  of  chemistry  and  physics  account 
for  the  first  beginnings  of  life  and  for  its  develop- 
ment in  the  vegetable  and  animal  worlds  ?  In 
this  discussion  simply  vital  activities  will  be  con- 
sidered ;  the  mental  activities  embraced  in  reason, 
instinct,  and  will  are  reserved  for  later  treatment. 
Living  matter  differs  from  inorganic  matter  in 
that  it  has  a  more  complex  structure,  and  in  that 
it  grows  under  new  laws.  It  is  made  out  of  a 
few  of  the  same  chemical  atoms,  but  chiefly  of 
four  of  them,  oxygen,  hydrogen,  carbon,  and 
nitrogen;  but  these  appear  in  much  more  intri- 
cate combinations  than  those  dealt  with  in  inor- 

8i 


82        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

ganic  chemistry.  Thus  ammonia,  an  inorganic 
compound,  has  a  composition  expressed  by  NH3, 
four  atoms,  while  haemoglobin,  an  organic  con- 
stituent of  the  blood  has,  according  to  Preyer,  the 
formula  C6ooH96oNi54FeiS30i79,  a  total  of  1894 
atoms.  Living  matter  also  has  the  power  of 
growth,  not  possessed  by  inorganic  matter.  It 
is  not  growth  when  a  crystal  of  altim  is  enlarged 
by  depositing  layer  on  layer  on  the  outside  of  it; 
but  the  plant  or  the  animal  grows  by  taking  food 
within  itself,  and  then  changing  it  into  vitalized 
matter.  This  requires  new  laws,  while  at  the 
sam©  time  the  physical  laws  continue  in  full  force. 
But  it  may  be  said,  and  has  been  said  by  m.any 
biologists,  that  there  is  no  basal  difference  be- 
tween purely  physical  forces  and  vital  forces,  that 
no  definite  line  of  demarcation  can  be  drawn  be- 
tween them;  that  products  once  called  vital  are 
now  formed  by  chemical  synthesis.  True,  there 
are  such  products  of  vital  action,  crystalline  in 
nature,  like  the  alizarine  of  indigo.  They  are  by- 
products of  vital  action,  not  themselves  vital,  in- 
capable of  growth,  thrown  off  in  the  process  of 
growth.  The  chemist  may  make  them,  but  no 
master  of  the  test-tube  and  balance  has  yet  learned 
how  to  synthesize  the  ovum  of  a  king-crab,  or  the 
prothallus  of  a  clinging  lichen,  or  even  a  single 
living,  growing  cell  of  which  they  are  composed. 
Nature  and  science  know  the  difference  between 
the   forces,    equally   but    differently   forceful,    of 


THE   MYSTERY  OF   LIFE  83 

purely  physical  matter  and  of  living  matter.  The 
one  is  dead,  though  its  atoms  are  always  in  mo- 
tion; the  other  has  life  and  the  characteristic 
evolutions  of  life. 

This  is  a  very  serious  and  important  distinc- 
tion. And  yet  it  is  clear  and  must  be  recognized 
that  every  product  of  life  is  created  under  the 
control  of  chemical  and  physical  laws.  Herein 
lies  the  strength  of  the  materialistic  argument. 
The  biologist's  business  is  to  observe  growth  and 
development,  and  he  sees  everything  obedient  to 
and  accountable  to  known  physical  laws.  Every 
change  in  a  cell,  every  evolution  in  an  egg,  every 
conformation  and  transformation  can  be  explained; 
everything  except  the  directive  impulse.  Every 
chemical  change  in  the  composition  of  the  grow- 
ing seed,  from  starch  into  dextrine  or  woody  fibre, 
follows  physical  law,  is  measurable  and  consonant ; 
but  no  physical  law  will  require  the  leaves  of  a 
seed  to  sprout  upward  and  its  roots  to  go  down- 
ward. The  directive  forces  of  life  use  physical 
laws  in  everything,  but  as  servitors ;  the  directive 
force  of  life  is  behind. 

I  am  compelled  to  believe  that  there  is  some- 
thing more  in  life  than  the  mere  forces  of  chemis- 
try and  physics.  Those  forces  can  explain  a  star, 
but  not  a  rose.  The  chemist  and  physicist  can 
follow  and  explain  everything — how  the  sap  rises 
under  osmotic  law,  the  oxygenation  of  the  blood, 
its  traverse  to  and  from  the  heart — everything 


84        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

except  just  one  thing,  namely,  what  is  the  initial 
impulse  that  sets  their  familiar  laws  at  work  in  a 
way  so  different,  so  superior  to  anything  that  those 
laws  can  do  apart  from  life.  Life  stops,  and  those 
laws  no  longer  in  subjection  act  in  their  own  free 
way,  and  the  matter  organized  under  life  disor- 
ganizes in  decay.  It  is  the  guidance,  the  direc- 
tion, so  palpable  to  create  a  plant,  a  bird,  a  man, 
which  physics  cannot  explain. 

It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  life  that  it  gives 
guidance,  is  purposive.  This  separates  it  from 
mere  physical  forces,  such  as  the  attraction  of 
chemism.  It  has  a  previsioned  end  to  achieve. 
It  aims  to  create  a  tree,  a  man,  then  to  keep  them 
repairing  themselves  or  growing  to  an  ideal  per- 
fection. Out  of  the  common  sap  the  atoms  dis- 
tribute themselves  after  a  preconceived  scheme 
to  organize  into  bark,  wood,  leaves,  petals,  stamens, 
pistils,  seeds,  just  as  we  knew  they  wotild  when  we 
planted  the  peach-stone.  That  is  very  purpose- 
ful life.  Life  chooses,  sorts,  selects,  directs,  sees, 
and  reaches  a  distant  aim.     Whence  comes  this 

-  outreaching,  selective,  directive  power  ? 

The  mere  biologist  does  not  try  to  answer  this 
question.  He  is  content  to  see  it,  to  state  its 
laws  and  give  names  to  the  usual  processes  of  life, 
and  then  he  too  often  thinks  that  the  naming  of 

I  the  law  is  an  explanation  of  its  force.  An  apple 
falls  to  the  ground.  We  ask  Why  ?  and  we  are 
told  that  the  attraction  of  the  earth  draws  it. 
Attraction  is  a  Latin  word  that  means  drawing; 


THE   MYSTERY  OF   LIFE  85 

and  so  we  are  told  that  drawing  draws  it;  and  so 
we  have  got  nowhere.  We  have  simply  given  a 
general  name  to  a  familiar  fact;  but  the  reason 
why  the  apple  falls  to  the  earth  we  have  not 
learned.  So  vitalism,  or  vital  force,  is  but  a  name 
we  give  to  an  observed  order  of  processes,  and, 
put  into  English,  it  means  nothing  more  than  life. 
It  explains  nothing.  Its  marked  character  is  its 
foresight.  This  prevision  is  everywhere,  in  the 
eggy  in  the  chick,  in  the  bird,  and  no  biologist 
can  explain,  he  can  only  describe  the  process. 
The  latest  biologists  are  coming  to  see  that 
physics  cannot  accoimt  for  life,  which  is  a  new  and 
added  directive  principle.  Says  the  distinguished 
Doctor  Anton  Kemer  in  his  ''Natural  History  of 
Plants,"  as  quoted  by  A.  R.  Wallace: 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  designate  as  "vital  force"  this 
natural  agency,  not  to  be  identified  with  any  other, 
whose  immediate  instrument  is  protoplasm,  and  whose 
peculiar  effects  we  call  life.  The  atoms  and  molecules  of 
protoplasm  perform  the  functions  which  we  call  life  only 
so  long  as  they  are  swayed  by  this  vital  principle.  If  its 
dominion  ceases  they  yield  to  the  operation  of  other  forces. 
The  recognition  of  a  special  natural  force  of  this  kind  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  living  bodies  may  at  the 
same  time  be  subject  to  other  natural  forces. 

Again  he  says,  speaking  of  the  wonderful  proc- 
esses connected  with  chlorophyll: 

What  is  altogether  puzzling  is,  how  the  active  forces 
work,  how  the  sun's  rays  are  able  to  bring  it  about  that 
the  atoms  of  the  raw  material  abandon  their  previous 
grouping,  become  displaced,  intermix  one  with  another, 


86        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

and  shortly  reappear  in  stable  combinations  under  a 
wholly  different  arrangement.  It  is  the  more  difficult 
to  gain  a  clear  idea  of  these  processes  because  it  is  not  a 
question  of  that  displacement  of  atoms  called  decomposi- 
tion, but  as  to  that  process  which  is  known  as  combina- 
tion, or  synthesis. 

This  directive  and  selective  force  which  we 
call  life  appears  to  be  outside  of  and  above  the 
laws  of  inorganic  nature.  Physical  nature  has 
no  such  power.  We  know  molecules  drawn  to- 
gether into  geometrical  forms  under  mechanical 
forces  which  we  do  in  a  measure  understand. 
But  in  those  forms  there  is  no  such  synthesis. 
We  cannot  imagine  such  blind  and  purposeless 
forces  performing  such  purposeful  combinations 
as  are  necessary  to  restore  the  lost  leg  of  a  lizard, 
or  to  create  buds  and  send  out  suckers  from  the 
spot  where  the  bark  of  the  tree  is  bruised.  Haeckel 
saw  the  difficulty  and  tried  to  explain  it  in  a 
meaningless  way.  He  postulated  will  in  the  form 
of  an  imconscious  directive  force  lodged  in  every 
atom,  its  unconscious  soul.  But  that  is  so  ut- 
terly void  of  evidence  and  so  utterly  contradicts 
the  universal  sense  of  the  race  that  we  must  dis- 
miss it.  It  is  easier,  instead  of  distributing  an 
imaginary  rudimentary  mind  to  all  the  atoms  of 
the  earth  and  of  all  worlds,  it  is  far  easier  to  con- 
ceive of  a  really  intelligent  Mind  that  guides  and 
directs  the  purposeful  forces  and  selective  move- 
ments in  all  the  forms  of  growth  and  life. 


THE   MYSTERY   OF   LIFE  87 

If  I  understand  Bergson  aright  he  avoids  com- 
mitting himself  to  the  recognition  of  such  a 
supreme  spiritual  power,  and  tells  us  that  there 
is  in  nature,  at  least  in  organic  nature,  in  all  its 
parts  and  from  its  beginning,  a  universal,  pri- 
mordial consciousness,  a  sort  of  undirected,  pur- 
poseless yearning,  reaching  out  after  activity  of 
whatever  sort.  It  has  no  definite  aim  beyond 
movement  in  any  direction  whatever  in  which  it 
is  not  met  and  hampered  by  inert  matter.  In  its 
resistance  to  that  hindrance  of  matter  it  finds 
some  happy  accidents  and  achieves  some  victories 
over  matter  which  give  it  new  forms  and  powers. 
If  I  understand  Metchnikoff ,  his  position  is  much 
the  same,  and  to  original  inorganic  matter  he 
gives  a  sort  of  vital  power.  What  they  fail  to  tell 
us  is  how  life  first  got  its  first  restlessness  of  energy, 
added  to  that  of  the  material  out  of  which  it  was 
made.  That  there  is  any  such  primordial  con- 
sciousness, any  such  embryonic  volition  in  inor- 
ganic matter,  or  organic  matter  either,  we  have 
not  the  slightest  evidence.  Such  inorganic  mat- 
ter is  the  very  slave  of  law.  It  never  resists  the 
laws  of  physics.  It  shows  no  will.  Nor  do  we 
see  any  sign  of  will  in  vegetable  life,  not  even  in 
the  leaf  that  turns  to  the  sun,  nor  in  the  stamen 
of  the  barberry  blossom  that  strikes  the  stigma 
when  the  leg  of  a  bee  touches  it.  We  do  find  it 
in  animal  life.  The  animal  has  volition,  and 
therein  has  a  new  power;   but  that  opens  a  new 


88        WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

field  that  needs  consideration  later.  In  all  veg- 
etable life,  and  in  the  constant  re-creation  of  the 
body  of  animals  and  man,  from  the  ovum  to  the 
birth,  there  is  no  sign  of  the  lowest  grade  of  will. 
The  activities  seem  to  be  those  simply  of  vital 
mechanism,  acting  surely,  with  all  the  certainty 
of  the  highest  intelligence,  but  quite  unconsciously 
and  non-volitionally.  We  can  go  no  further. 
To  assume  volition  where  none  appears  is  arbi- 
trary and  illegitimate.  There  is  teleologic  activity, 
everything  tending  to  its  end,  but  all  the  activity 
is  fixed  and  hardened  into  regulated  law.  But 
law  is  not  force,  has  no  force,  is  merely  the  state- 
ment of  what  some  force  which  we  do  not  under- 
stand but  which  we  call  vital  force  does.  If  a 
God  is  not  otherwise  excluded  it  seems  to  me 
reasonable  to  conclude  that  this  force  comes  from 
God. 

If  the  powers  of  life  are  so  utterly  different  from 
and  superior  to  those  of  inorganic  matter,  one  is 
forced  to  ask  how  dead  matter  came  to  get  life. 
Physical  forces  can  give  us  a  diamond,  a  mud- 
bank  or  a  star;  vital  forces  can  give  us  a  lichen, 
an  oak,  a  star-fish,  and  a  man.  Physical  forces 
began  to  act  we  do  not  know  how  many  myriads 
of  eons  ago;  whether  with  the  origin  of  the  neb- 
ulous swarm  out  of  which  our  solar  system  started, 
or  how  much  further  back  in  the  first  of  the  pos- 
sible succession  of  repeated  cosmic  evolutions 
under  which  worlds  exist.     We  only  know  that 


'  THE   MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  89 

as  long  as  there  has  been  matter  in  any  form  its 
material  laws  have  been  in  force.  But  vital  force 
had  a  beginning  in  a  vastly  later  time,  after  the 
deposition  of  the  Archean  rocks  and  the  quieting 
down  of  the  boiling  oceans.  How  happened  it 
that  this  new  sort  of  force  was  added  to  the  old  ? 
We  cannot  see  that  there  was  any  tendency  in 
the  chemical  forces  themselves  to  develop  into 
vital  forces.  Thus  far  chemists  have  been  utterly 
imable  to  persuade  chemism  to  blossom  into  life. 
Every  possible  way  that  ingenuity  could  devise 
has  been  tried  in  vain.  I  cannot  deny  that  it 
may  be  achieved,  but  thus  far  the  strong  evidence 
is  against  it.  The  only  present  argument  for  the 
production  of  life  out  of  physical  laws  rests  in  the 
inability  or  imwillingness  to  allow  that  any  supe- 
rior Power  could  have  had  a  part  in  the  rule  of 
the  tmi verse.  Life  had  a  beginning  on  the  earth 
after  it  had  cooled  down  enough  to  allow  life  to 
exist.  Some  have  conjectured  that  life  began 
here  by  being  brought  on  meteoric  dust  or  stones. 
So  far  as  we  can  know,  all  such  matter,  coming  at 
an  enormous  velocity,  is  raised  on  meeting  the  air 
to  a  heat  that  would  destroy  all  life.  But  even  if 
fine  dust  could  escape  incandescence,  that  would 
only  throw  the  question  back  to  the  world  from 
which  the  life  was  brought.  That  solution  may 
be  dismissed.  Life  is  not  a  necessary  phase  of 
matter;  it  had  a  beginning,  had  a  cause — a  cause, 
as  it  appears  after  immense  investigation,  not  in 


90        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

physical  law  but  from  some  other  source.  We 
cannot  well  conceive  of  any  such  source  other 
than  that  which  by  a  crude  process  of  reason  the 
earliest  races  and  religions  have  settled  upon. 
If  physical  nature  is  not  self -existent,  had  a  Cause, 
equally  the  world  of  life,  by  its  very  origin  in  time, 
suggests  such  a  superior,  self -existent  Cause. 

We  must  suppose  that  organic  life  began  on  the 
earth  as  a  cell  of  protoplasm.  But  what  is  a  cell  ? 
It  is  a  composite  of  such  infinite  complexity  com- 
posed of  so  many  atoms,  so  specially  arranged, 
and  possessed  of  such  extraordinary  powers,  that 
it  seems  incredible  that  any  ordinary  chemical 
attractions  should  by  any  happy  accident  have 
produced  it.  It  is  made  up  of  carbonaceous  and 
proteid  components,  vastly  more  complex  than 
any  inorganic  substance  which  either  nature's 
laboratory  or  that  of  man  can  create.  Then 
think  of  its  powers,  so  utterly  unlike  those  of 
chemism.  It  can  take  in  outer  inorganic  matter, 
assimilate  it,  enlarge,  and  then  subdivide  itself. 
That  is,  it  can  grow.  It  duplicates  its  nucleus  and 
breaks  in  two. 

We  can  compare  the  growth  of  the  cell  with 
the  nearest  parallel  we  have  in  inorganic  nature, 
the  creation  of  a  crystal,  with  its  twinning,  or  its 
aggregation  of  crystals,  and  the  smaller,  often  very 
minute  ones  on  the  surface  of  a  larger  one  giving 
it  a  drusy  quality.  But  the  parallel  is  only  super- 
ficial.    In  a  crystal  of  quartz  or  alum  or  sugar 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  91 

the  molecule  has  a  definite  form,  possesses  definite, 
fixed  polar  attractions  which  give  the  crystal  its 
definite  shape,  as  each  molecule  attracts  the  next 
to  its  predestined  place,  each  molecule  being  of  a 
limited  number  of  atoms.  Thus  the  quartz 
crystal  is  silicon  dioxide,  Si02,  having  thus  three 
atoms.  Sugar  has  the  formula,  CigHgzOn,  forty- 
five  atoms.  Each  molecule  attracts  another  just 
like  it,  and  this  again  another,  and  each  falls  into 
the  place  which  its  polar  attraction  requires,  thus 
getting  a  definite  geometric  shape.  Two  crystals 
can  in  their  formation  interfere  with  each  other 
and  form  a  twin  crystal,  or  small  crystals  can  be 
deposited  on  a  large  one;  but  in  each  case  it  is 
mere  superficial  aggregation,  like  added  to  like 
on  the  surface,  by  a  very  simple  law  of  crystalliza- 
tion easily  explained. 

Very  different  is  the  case  with  organic  life.  A 
cell  is  the  beginning  of  an  organism,  but  it  is  ex- 
cessively composite.  It  is  made  up  of  an  envelope, 
with  a  nucleus,  and  filled  with  protoplasm.  The 
cells  differ,  but  they  are  all  composed  of  himdreds 
or  thousands  of  atoms  in  each  molecule  of  proto- 
plasm. Then  it  grows  not  by  deposition  from 
without,  but  by  absorption  followed  by  division 
from  within,  the  very  reverse  process  from  that 
of  the  crystal.  It  feeds  itself  from  without,  ab- 
sorbing its  nutriment  within  itself,  imtil  it  is 
ready  to  divide.  And  it  has  the  remarkable  selec- 
tive, directive  power  of  developing  from  the  cen- 


92        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

tral  cell  of  the  ovum  into  a  fish  or  a  bird  or  a  man. 
The  processes  of  growth  are  utterly  different  in 
the  organism  from  what  they  are  in  the  crystal, 
the  movements  of  life  absolutely  diverse  from 
those  of  chemical  attraction,  and  the  products 
are  as  different,  one  a  stone,  the  other  a  man. 
Life  takes  lifeless  matter,  dissolves  it,  recreates 
it,  overcomes  it,  subverts  its  laws  and  gives  to 
its  products  a  continuous  self-productive,  recrea- 
tive, procreative,  permanent  force,  utterly  diverse 
from  the  inertness  of  the  immobile  products  of 
chemism.  Such  a  new  world  of  life,  not  to  be  ex- 
plained by  physical  law,  suggests  a  Power  outside 
of  the  physical  which  at  the  critical  time  intro- 
duced it  into  the  world  and  gave  it  its  extraor- 
dinary qualities. 

There  is  only  one  world  of  inorganic  matter  and 
law,  but  there  are  two  worlds  of  life,  vegetable 
and  animal.  First  came  vegetable  life,  which 
takes  inorganic  matter  and  makes  it  organic; 
next  came  animal  life,  which  must  seek  as  its 
nutriment  matter  already  organized.  If  it  be  a 
fact  that  vegetable  life  had  its  beginning  in  time 
upon  the  earth,  originating  here,  and  all  efforts 
at  securing  spontaneous  generation  under  the 
most  hopeful  conditions  have  thus  far  failed  of 
success,  the  same  is  true  of  animal  life.  At  some 
time,  and  in  its  lowest  forms,  animal  life  began 
to  appear  upon  the  earth,  at  a  time  subsequent 
to  the  appearance  of  vegetable  life,  on  which  it 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  93 

fed.  It  was  very  different  in  its  chemical  struc- 
ture, in  the  assimilation  of  its  aliment,  and  in  its 
development.  One  produces  a  fixed  tree,  the 
other  a  free-moving  man.  It  is  thus  a  new  world 
of  life,  so  that  we  now  have  two  worlds  of  life, 
organized  on  separate  types,  these  two  and  no 
more.  They  originate  here,  and  in  time,  and  suc- 
cessively. We  might  imagine  a  primordial  cell 
with  an  accidental  life  impulse  that  might  indif- 
ferently produce  both  vegetable  and  animal  life, 
but  so  far  as  we  can  tell  from  geological  history, 
and  from  the  necessities  of  the  case,  the  vegetable 
impulse  was  the  first,  and  the  animal  came  later. 
Why  should  it  not  have  continued  developing 
vegetable  life  ?  It  would  seem  as  if  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  new  and  different  system  of  life  required 
interposition  from  without.  Each  of  the  two 
worlds  of  life  has  its  own  peculiar  impulse,  one 
producing  the  rose,  the  palm,  the  oak,  and  the 
other  the  shell,  the  bird,  the  man.  To  me  it  does 
not  seem  probable  that  these  two  systems  have 
originated  their  own  separate  impulses,  their  own 
directive  aims,  to  produce  one  wood,  the  other 
flesh  and  bone;  the  one  to  develop  into  the  forest 
of  oaks,  the  other  into  eagles  and  lions,  and  all 
out  of  the  same  forces  that  create  the  crystal. 
There  is  as  yet  no  evidence  to  support  the  suppo- 
sition. If  we  cannot  absolutely  deny  that  such 
may  be  the  case,  the  suggestion  yet  seems  plausi- 
ble that  some  exterior  power  started  the  two  new 


94        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

streams  of  force  and  life;  and  the  suggestion 
seems  more  than  plausible  unless  we  begin  by  the 
blank  assumption  that  no  such  exterior  power  as 
we  call  God  can  exist.  One  may  question  and 
doubt  about  God,  but  how  deny  ? 

It  is  the  selective  and  directive  power  of  life 
that  needs  to  be  accounted  for,  which  takes  the 
same  identical  material  and  sends  it  on  errands 
in  different  directions  to  do  utterly  different  crea- 
tive work.  It  is  a  comparatively  easy  task  for 
biologists  to  describe  the  process  of  growth  in  an 
animal  or  plant,  how  from  the  germ  in  the  ovule 
or  ovum  one  change  follows  another  until  the  cell, 
perhaps  too  small  to  be  seen  without  a  microscope, 
becomes  the  elephant  or  the  oak.  That  satisfies 
and  has  to  satisfy  the  botanist  or  zoologist.  He 
can  describe  the  process  by  which  the  contents  of 
the  egg  segregate  and  separate  until  the  chick  is 
ready  full-formed  to  escape  from  the  shell;  or 
how  from  the  seed  the  radicle  digs  downward  and 
the  plimiule  mounts  upward,  and  then  how  leaf 
succeeds  leaf,  and  branches  follow,  and  flowers,  and 
fruit.  But  by  what  force  or  for  what  reason  all 
this  purposive  reorganization  takes  place  he  can- 
not tell  us,  and  he  usually  forgets  even  to  wonder 
at  the  mysterious  commonplace  which  it  is  not 
his  business  to  understand.  Because  he  knows 
that  no  ordinary  chemical  reactions  can  explain 
it,  he  calls  it  vital  force,  life.  I  insist  that  this 
force,   so  absolutely  and  teleologically  selective, 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  LIFE  95 

which  out  of  one  sap  or  one  blood  directs  its  ele- 
ments to  go  each  to  its  own  place  and  create  so 
many  different  sorts  of  things,  leaf,  bark,  wood, 
gum,  oil,  starch;  or  muscle,  bone,  hair,  nails,  skin 
— this  selective  force  we  cannot  at  all  explain, 
any  more  than  we  can  imitate  the  least  of  it,  not 
a  scale  on  the  down  of  a  butterfly's  wing  with  our 
best  skill  in  our  best-furnished  laboratories;  and 
so  we  give  it  a  name  and  call  it  life,  and  then  are 
likely  to  think  we  understand  it  because  we  have 
given  it  an  empty  name.  We  observe  all  the 
phenomena  of  nutrition,  assimilation,  and  growth, 
and  then  take  them  for  granted,  and  forget  to 
wonder  why  all  the  chemical  atoms,  oxygen,  hy- 
drogen, nitrogen,  carbon,  lime,  manage  to  get 
drawn  into  just  the  right  places  to  develop  the 
cells  wanted,  and  at  just  the  right  time.  Ordinary- 
chemical  and  mechanical  processes  cannot  explain 
all  this.  They  can  do  their  part  as  long  as  life 
is  present  to  direct  them,  but  when  life  ends, 
although  the  plant  or  animal  remains  the  same, 
the  ordinary  chemical  and  mechanical  reactions 
assert  themselves,  and  what  was  evolved  under 
life  is  dissolved  and  decays.  All  the  time  there  is 
an  end  in  view,  a  new  organism  to  be  created,  just 
as  truly  anticipated  and  worked  for  as  when  a 
man  makes  a  mallet  or  builds  a  house.  Nothing 
less  does  the  egg  do  when  it  makes  a  chicken,  or 
the  blood  when  it  repairs  a  broken  bone.  I  say 
as  Professor  Anton  Kemer  has  said  before,  that 


96        WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

this  is  no  operation  of  ordinary  chemistry,  that  it 
works  only  so  long  as  the  molecules  of  protoplasm 
are  swayed  by  what  we  call  the  vital  principle, 
but  as  soon  as  that  is  lost  the  same  protoplasm 
can  do  nothing  but  fall  under  the  forces  of  com- 
mon chemical  action.  There  are,  so  far  as  I  see, 
only  two  possible  theories  for  the  origination  and 
development  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  on  the 
earth,  one  by  the  undirected,  accidental  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions  somehow  possessed  by  the 
ultimate  electrons  of  matter,  and  the  other  by 
the  purposed  guidance  and  direction  of  a  superior, 
self -existent  intelligence.  To  my  mind  the  latter 
seems  the  more  reasonable  and  likely. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FORESIGHT   IN   EVOLUTION 

IN  the  present  chapter  I  would  ask  the  reader 
to  consider  some  of  the  phases  of  evolution 
which  seem  to  indicate  foresight  in  preparing 
for  processes  or  fimctions  before  they  come  into 
use,  and  therefore  appear  to  indicate  intelligent 
design. 

Since  the  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  evolu- 
tion the  question  is  no  longer  that  of  the  Bridge- 
water  Treatises,  Does  this  or  that  organ,  so  per- 
fectly adapted  to  human  or  other  use  thereby 
show  evidence  of  design  ?  but  it  is  rather  this : 
Could  the  blind  and  miscellaneous  processes  of 
variation  ever  actually  have  produced,  without 
guidance,  this  or  that  organ  or  world  ?  What  we 
are  in  search  of  in  this  study  is  to  discover  whether 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  directive  evolution,  evolu- 
tion not  merely  reaching  out  at  haphazard  and 
on  every  side,  and  then  conserving  its  happenings 
when  they  become  useful,  but  rather  evolution 
also  guided,  directed  by  a  master  of  nature.  We 
are  liable  to  err  in  our  observations,  and  also  to 
be  prejudiced  by  our  beliefs  or  disbeliefs ;  but  there 
may  yet  be  some  test  principles  which  we  may 
apply  for  our  guidance. 

97 


98        WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Under  the  laws  of  evolution  we  can  conceive 
an  organ  or  organism,  belonging  to  an  animal  or 
plant,  to  be  immediately  useful  as  soon  as  it  be- 
gins to  appear  in  a  slight  degree;  and  then  it  is 
easy  to  believe  that  its  survival  value  will  lead  to 
its  further  development  until  it  becomes  an  im- 
portant feature,  of  the  species.  That  is  plain 
evolution.  But  if  there  is  a  considerable  period 
in  the  development  of  an  organ  during  which  it 
is  not  of  use,  but  requires  to  be  perfected,  this  will 
then  appear  to  be  a  directive  evolution,  one  that 
anticipates  an  end  not  yet  reached,  and  which 
seems  to  imply  some  exterior  and  designing  in- 
telligence. In  the  field  of  Hfe  we  may  properly 
apply  this  test  and  its  evidence  will  be  of  value. 
Such  evidence  there  appears  to  be. 

I  will  not  here  stop  to  dwell  on  the  fact  already 
referred  to  that  every  vital  process  has  a  forward 
look,  that  every  drop  of  blood  or  sap,  and  every 
constituent  of  egg  or  seed  moves  to  achieve  a 
future  end,  just  as  in  the  body  the  phagocytes 
gather  and  proceed  to  absorb  and  destroy  worn- 
out  cells.  I  would  here  consider  some  more 
special  examples  of  development  which  antici- 
pate some  useful  end  to  come  later. 

Vegetable  life  anticipated  animal  life.  Vegeta- 
ble life  does  not  need  animal  life;  it  can  live  alone. 
But  animal  life  must  have  vegetable  life  to  sub- 
sist upon;  so  vegetable  life  prepared  the  way  for 
it.     Animal  life  came  into  existence  in  the  life 


FORESIGHT  IN  EVOLUTION  99 

history  of  the  world  just  as  fast  as  plant  life  was 
ready  for  it.  The  enormous  browsing  animals  of 
the  Tertiary  Period  followed  enormous  plant  de- 
velopment; and  then,  that  they  might  not  over- 
run the  earth,  but  be  properly  reduced  in  numbers, 
there  appeared  the  monster  sabre-toothed  lions 
and  tigers,  which  happily  became  extinct  when 
unarmed  naked  man  appeared  defenseless,  except 
in  his  superior  intelligence.  All  this  fitting  of 
time  to  time,  animal  to  vegetable  life,  and  the  suc- 
cessive forms  of  animal  life,  each  appearing  in  just 
the  right  succession  of  time,  seems  to  suggest 
some  directive  impulse. 

Not  only  does  the  order  of  the  appearance  on 
the  earth  of  the  successive  forms  of  life  suggest  a 
forward  anticipatory  look  and  piupose,  but  we 
seem  to  observe  the  same  thing  when  we  consider 
the  production  of  the  parts  and  organs  of  the  liv- 
ing body.  The  old  argimient  for  creationism 
drawn  from  the  eye  treated  it  simply  as  a  mech- 
anism, a  wonderfully  complicated  and  acciurate 
mechanism,  something  far  beyond  what  human 
intelligence  could  have  planned,  and  it  asked 
whether  it  must  not  have  had  an  omniscient  con- 
triver. But  evolution  replied  that  sensitiveness 
to  Hght  began  in  the  formless  amoeba,  which  has 
no  differentiated  nervous  system  whatever,  that  in 
the  course  of  division  and  reproduction  a  certain 
portion  of  the  structure  became  somewhat  sen- 
sitive to  light,  and  that  there  was  produced  in  the 


loo      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

infusorian  a  pigment  spot  which  was  more  sensi- 
tive than  other  parts.  Then  by  slow  degrees, 
through  accidental  favorable  modifications  of 
many  generations,  one  improvement  after  another 
happened  to  be  added,  until  at  last  we  have  the 
eye  of  the  vertebrates,  with  all  its  marvellously 
accurate  complexity  of  adaptation  for  the  purpose 
of  vision.  But  does  not  this  put  too  much  on  the 
unpurposed  action  of  evolution?  The  eye  is  an 
instrument  composed  of  parts  co-ordinated  to  each 
other.  No  one  is  of  any  advantage  without  all 
the  others.  The  retina  needs  a  crystalline  lens 
to  focus  a  picture  upon  it.  The  appearance  of 
an  imperfect  lump  of  stiff er  transparent  fluid,  the 
beginning  of  a  crystalline  lens,  may  be  conceived 
to  be  of  some  advantage;  but  not  unless  at  the 
same  time,  and  in  the  same  individual,  there  were 
a  corresponding  improvement  in  the  constitution 
of  the  retina  with  its  rods  and  cones  fitted  to  re- 
ceive and  define  the  very  imperfect  image  cast 
by  the  gelatinous  lump  not  yet  a  crystalline  lens. 
Every  improvement  in  the  lens  requires  in  the 
same  individual  a  parallel  improvement  in  the 
retina.  The  two  must  coincide  to  be  of  any 
added  advantage  and  be  transmitted.  But  there 
is  no  likelihood  that  they  will  coincide  by  any 
happy  accident.  Just  so  with  the  other  parts  of 
the  eye,  the  aqueous  humor,  the  cornea,  the  iris; 
the  evolution  must  be  progressive,  representing 
co-ordinate  changes  in  all  the  parts,  each  follow- 


FORESIGHT  IN   EVOLUTION        loi 

ing  the  other,  for  any  one  change  in  a  single  part 
must  be  met  by  changes  in  all  the  other  parts; 
otherwise  there  will  be  confusion  rather  than  im- 
proved vision.  This  co-ordination  is  not  to  be 
expected  in  a  single  individual.  Under  the  law  of 
chances  that  is  too  much  to  ask.  If  the  changes 
do  occur  simultaneously  by  a  succession  of  those 
leaps  which  is  called  mutation,  that  makes  it  all 
the  more  evident  that  some  guiding  hand  has 
directed  it.  The  appearance  is  of  design,  a  pre- 
arranged evolution  of  the  eye. 

But  let  us  follow  Bergson  in  going  a  little 
further  than  this.  I  have  spoken  of  the  verte- 
brate eye,  that  of  the  fish,  the  reptile,  the  bird, 
the  mammal,  and  man.  It  is  all  one  sort  of  eye, 
which  may  be  conceived,  if  you  please,  as  being  the 
product  of  unpurposed  evolution.  But  the  mol- 
lusca  have  to  all  purpose  the  same  eye.  We  may 
suppose  the  vertebrate  eye  to  have  followed  in  its 
creation  a  single  line  of  evolution,  and  that  the 
eye  happened  so  early  in  the  progress  of  the  verte- 
brate from  the  primitive  amphioxus  to  become 
fixed  in  its  mechanism,  that  all  vertebrate  eyes, 
those  of  fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  and  mammals  have 
the  same  structure.  But  how  about  the  eye  of 
the  mollusk?  The  mollusk  and  the  vertebrate 
separated,  in  the  division  of  life,  long  before  the 
eye  began  to  be  evolved.  Mollusks  and  verte- 
brates are  built  on  utterly  different  plans,  and  yet 
they  have  very  much  the  same  sort  of  eye,  but 


I02      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

with  a  different  origin  of  growth.  The  verte- 
brate's eye  grows  out  of  the  brain,  but  the  mol- 
lusk's  eye,  the  same  fashion  of  eye,  grows  out  of 
the  ectoderm,  or  outer  covering.  How  does  this 
happen  ?  Here  is  a  coincidence  not  easy  to  ex- 
plain. This  is  not  the  only  kind  of  eye  possible 
or  conceivable.  Flies  have  a  different  eye  with  a 
multitude  of  lenses.  The  coincidence  of  the  ver- 
tebrate eye  with  that  of  the  mollusk  is  most  ex- 
traordinary, not  easy  to  explain  on  any  theory  of 
unpurposed  evolution  from  accidental  variations. 
Then  one  thing  more  is  to  be  considered  as 
brought  out  by  Bergson.  The  eye  has  its  own 
separate  source  of  growth  in  the  fetus.  It  begins 
from  the  brain  as  its  special  root,  as  it  does  from 
the  ectoderm  in  the  mollusk.  But  in  certain 
salamanders  the  eye  can  be  removed,  when  it  will 
regenerate  itself  from  its  normal  root.  But  take 
away  that  root,  and  it  will  regenerate  itself  from 
another  and  yet  another  root.  What  has  this  to 
do  with  evolution  ?  Does  it  not  indeed  contra- 
dict the  law  of  evolution  ?  For  here  the  eye  comes 
out  of  a  structure  other  than  that  from  which  in 
the  course  of  evolution  it  has  been  derived.  It 
would  seem  as  if  there  were  a  purpose  in  the  re- 
generative growth  of  the  system  which  looks  for- 
ward to  the  end  and  jumps  athwart  the  course  of 
evolution.  There  is  something  directive  and  dis- 
tinctly telic  about  it,  something  that  suggests  a 
divine  superintendence. 


FORESIGHT  IN  EVOLUTION        103 

Another  very  remarkable  case  in  which  in  na- 
ture provision  is  made  for  a  function  before  it  is 
ready  to  be  exercised  appears  in  bisexuaHsm, 
and  that  too  appears  in  both  animals  and  plants. 
In  the  lower  organisms  there  is  no  sex,  and  repro- 
duction is  by  fission.  A  cell,  and  equally  the 
lower  types,  divide  into  two  individuals.  It 
would  seem  as  if  Nature  would  continue  this 
method  for  the  succession  of  life.  And  so  indeed 
it  does;  for  not  only  can  nearly  all  plants  be  re- 
produced by  buds  or  slips,  but  the  lowest  forms 
of  animal  hfe  still  use  only  the  method  of  fission, 
while  others  reproduce  themselves  in  part  by 
parthenogenesis.  But  in  the  larger  part  of  both 
the  vegetable  and  animal  world  an  intermediate 
step  is  introduced,  that  of  bisexuaHsm.  Doubt- 
less this  is  of  great  advantage  in  multiplying  the 
chances  for  variation  in  the  offspring,  and  thus 
for  the  advance  of  evolution.  But  is  it  not  ex- 
traordinary that  these  two  great  kingdoms  of  life, 
animals  and  plants,  so  diverse  from  the  beginning, 
should  have  forsaken  reproduction  by  fission,  and 
should  have  happened  to  hit  upon  this  same  sex- 
ual method  of  securing  progeny,  so  that  in  most 
species  of  animals,  if  not  of  plants,  there  are  none 
produced  that  are  not  the  product  of  sex-imion? 
Yet  this  is  not  essential,  nor  is  it  the  primitive 
and  natural  way,  which  is  by  division.  In  not 
a  few  forms  of  life  which  propagate  by  sex-union 
parthenogenesis  can  be  continued  for  several  gen- 


104      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

erations.  In  plants  reproduction  by  division  is 
familiar  to  all  of  us.  The  buds  at  the  axil  of 
every  leaf  of  the  tiger-lily  drop  off  and  produce 
fresh  plants  with  no  sexual  union.  Even  more 
familiar  to  everybody  is  the  reproduction  of 
select  varieties  of  plants  and  trees  by  slips  or 
grafts  or  tubers.  The  potato,  the  tulip,  the  Con- 
cord grape,  the  Baldwin  apple  are  examples. 
Any  green  twig  of  willow  stuck  in  the  ground  will 
grow  a  tree.  But  this  primitive  and  simplest 
method  of  propagation  does  not  prevail.  We  see 
no  reason  why  it  should  not  have  done  so.  It 
allows  sports,  new  varieties,  though  less  freely 
than  is  gained  by  sex-union.  It  has  been  replaced 
in  both  the  animal  and  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
It  would  look  as  if  there  were  some  governing 
general  design  which  chose  this  method  of  repro- 
duction as  best  for  the  development  of  both 
vegetable  and  animal  life.  It  looks  like  purpo- 
sive foresight. 

And  all  the  more  because  the  origin  of  bisexu- 
ality  would  seem  of  necessity  to  have  antedated 
its  use.  There  could  not  have  been  union  of  the 
two  sexes  before  there  were  sexes.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  purpose  to  have  sexes  must  have  pre- 
ceded the  appearance  of  the  two.  Doubtless  the 
differentiation  of  the  sexes  was  itself  an  evolution 
as  it  progressed,  but  in  its  beginnings  it  must  have 
started  before  its  purpose  could  be  achieved; 
and  so  its  course  and  beginning  were  directive, 


FORESIGHT   IN   EVOLUTION        105 

but  not  self-directive.  It  appears  as  if  an  out- 
side intelligence  had  planned  it  as  a  new  method 
of  life,  and  had  then  imposed  it  equally  on  both 
the  animal  and  the  vegetable  kingdom. 

The  very  appearance  of  bisexualism  in  either 
plants  or  animals,  and  much  more  in  both,  is  a 
strange  phenomenon.  As  already  said,  reproduc- 
tion by  division  is  the  natural  and  simple  way, 
while  that  by  sex-imion  is  new  and  compHcated. 
In  the  plant  it  requires  the  creation  of  new  organs, 
stamen,  and  pistil,  creating  the  flower  not  before 
needed.  And  the  two  sex  organs  must  be  created 
before  fertilization  can  take  place.  That  is,  they 
have  come  in  anticipation  of  a  new  order  of  things 
not  yet  inaugurated.  That  means  foresight,  such 
as  a  plant  does  not  have.  The  foresight  must 
have  been  in  some  superior  intelligence.  The 
case  is  similar  in  the  animal  kingdom,  but  with 
this  addition,  that  no  longer  is  the  sexual  union 
unconscious  and  involuntary,  brought  about  by 
winds  or  insects,  but  is  the  result  of  a  physical 
passion  or  instinct.  Nature  creates  this  passion, 
for  the  sake  of  progeny,  but  the  animal  knows  no 
more  that  it  is  necessary  to  preserve  the  race 
than  do  the  stamen  and  pistil,  the  insect  and  the 
wind  that  fertiHze  the  blossom.  There  are  tribes 
in  Australia  equally  ignorant.  It  is  not  man  or 
the  animal  or  the  plant  that  has  related  the  sex- 
ual act  to  propagation  of  the  species.  It  achieves 
its  end,  but  utterly  unconsciously,  without  pur- 


io6      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

pose.  But  there  is  an  end  and  a  purpose  which 
must  reside  somewhere,  somewhere  else  than  in 
the  plant  or  animal. 

Thus  at  the  beginning  reproduction  by  division 
held  the  field.  Evolution  moved  that  way.  But 
an  absolutely  different  plan  broke  out,  needed 
for  higher  evolution,  for  another  purpose  not 
needed  by  bare  nature,  but  needed  by  anticipation 
for  the  creation  of  superior  forms  of  life  and  for 
man.  The  earlier  method  had  been  to  make  two 
out  of  one.  The  new  method  was  to  make  one 
out  of  two.  It  was  an  absolute  break  from  the 
path  of  evolution  needed  and  introduced  for  an 
important  distant  purpose,  that  of  progeny.  It 
has  the  appearance  of  being  anticipatory,  pros- 
pective, purposive,  and  therefore  the  work  of  a 
superior  intelligent  being. 

These  two  cases  of  the  eye  and  sex  are  but  illus- 
trations of  the  anticipative  appearance  of  organs 
and  structures  that  prepare  the  way  for  subse- 
quent uses.  It  is  a  rule  of  nature.  One  may  say 
that  because  the  eye  happens  to  develop  in  that 
way  we  see,  or  because  sex  by  accident  comes  to 
be  therefore  propagation  takes  the  new  direction; 
but  to  me  it  appears  more  reasonable  to  conclude 
that  because  sight  is  needed  therefore  the  eye 
comes  into  being  to  prepare  the  way  for  sight, 
and  that  the  distinction  of  sex  came  first  to  pro- 
vide for  a  better  way  by  which  both  animals  and 
plants  would  advance  to  speedier  heights  in  ev- 


FORESIGHT  IN   EVOLUTION        107 

olution  through  mutations  under  MendeHan  law. 
Equally  it  would  appear  to  me  that  when  life 
began  in  the  water,  and  fishes,  breathing  by  gills, 
began  to  develop  into  reptiles  living  on  land  as 
well  as  in  water,  their  possession  of  rudimentary 
lungs,  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  change,  in- 
dicated that  the  change  of  structure  was  made  for 
a  purpose.  Why  should  a  gill-breathing  aquatic 
animal  ever  begin  to  get  lungs,  except  because  in 
some  future  form  of  life  it  would  need  them  ? 
Take  the  mudfish,  Necturus  maculosus,  which  has 
gills,  lives  in  the  water,  but  also  has  rudimentary 
limgs  which  it  can  slightly  use.  They  seem  to 
prepare  and  provide,  in  the  imperfect  lungs  which 
they  do  not  need,  for  the  necessities  of  their  air- 
breathing  descendants.  The  fish  must  become  a 
reptile,  a  land  animal,  drop  its  gills  and  take  lungs; 
or  in  its  individual  life  the  tadpole  must  become 
a  frog. 

Another  case  of  that  directive  evolution  which 
anticipates  in  one  form  of  life  what  will  be  neces- 
sary in  a  subsequent  one  appears  in  the  common 
butterfly.  It  presents  an  extraordinary  life  his- 
tory. The  butterfly  lays  an  egg  which  hatches 
into  a  worm  utterly  different  from  the  parent.  It 
feeds  voraciously,  grows  rapidly,  and  then  drops 
its  skin,  creates  a  new  harder  one,  and  becomes  a 
chrysalis.  Now  observe  the  change.  All  the 
parts  and  organs  of  the  old  ugly  worm  dissolve 
into  a  homogeneous  pulp,  which  contains  no  or- 


io8      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

gans  whatever.  The  old  nervous  and  muscular 
system  is  all  gone.  Then  there  begins  to  form 
out  of  this  pulp,  as  a  chicken  forms  out  of  an  eggy 
an  utterly  new  creature,  a  gorgeous  butterfly  with 
wings  that  sucks  honey  from  flowers.  Every 
change  was  an  anticipative  one,  the  chrysalis  for 
the  butterfly;  the  old  structure  dissolved,  not  for 
its  own  sake,  but  because  it  was  necessary  to  de- 
stroy the  old  so  that  life  might  begin  all  over 
again.  This  does  not  look  like  the  work  of  sim- 
Dle  evolution,  but  of  an  artist  planner. 

Parallel  cases  are  numerous  in  which  adapta- 
tion appears  that  could  not  have  been  caused  by 
the  happy  accumulation  of  accidental  variations. 
Several  are  mentioned  by  T.  H.  Morgan.  He 
cites  insects  which  show  curiously  close  adjust- 
ment of  the  sexes,  in  which  the  fittings  vary  from 
species  to  species;  the  occurrence  of  offensive 
odors  or  poisons ;  the  spines  of  the  hedgehog  and 
sea-urchin  and  protective  colors.     Says  he: 

These  contrivances  are  not  the  result  of  primary  or 
directly  causal  relations,  but  are  secondary  relations, 
which  appear  to  be  removed  from  the  province  of  physical 
problems,  in  the  sense  that  they  are  supposed  not  to  be 
the  result  of  causal  interaction. 

There  appear  to  be  various  indications  of  some- 
what more  than  mere  chance  variations  in  the 
evolution  of  man  from  the  lower  mammalia.  It 
would  seem  as  if  Nature  had  anticipated  man,  and 


FORESIGHT  IN  EVOLUTION        109 

had  directed  the  steps  of  evolution  toward  him  as 
the  ultimate  goal. 

Man  is  better  than  the  brute  not  because  he  is 
stronger  or  swifter,  for  he  is  not — many  surpass 
him — but  he  has  intelligence,  and  his  wit  must 
overcome  their  muscular  advantage.  For  one 
thing,  he  must  stand  erect,  with  head  above  his 
body,  and  must  walk  on  two  feet.  But  that  is 
of  no  advantage  till  he  has  human  intelligence. 
Yet  the  monkeys  and  the  larger  apes  prepare  the 
way  under  the  usual  path  of  evolutionary  prog- 
ress, as  if  by  a  sort  of  foresight  for  the  anticipated 
crown  of  all  creation.  The  anthropoid  apes  are 
all  arboreal.  They  climb  the  trees  of  the  forests, 
live  on  nuts,  cling  to  the  branches,  crawl  along 
them  with  their  four  hands,  rest  there,  but  they 
have  no  visible  need  of  a  semiupright  stature. 
They  could,  for  all  we  can  see,  do  just  as  well  when 
they  walk  on  the  groimd,  to  walk,  as  some  of  them 
do,  on  their  four  limbs.  But  they  are  semi- 
erect,  not  as  a  dog  or  a  bear  may  occasionally  rise 
on  its  hind  feet,  and  not  particularly  for  their  own 
evident  advantage,  but,  for  all  I  can  see,  in  a 
prophetic  way,  to  lay  down  the  path  of  evolution 
for  man.  That  is,  evolution  has  been  guided, 
directed,  along  a  road  laid  out  for  it,  just  as  a 
railway  train  follows  the  track  laid  out  for  it  to 
reach  the  city. 

Let  me  take  another  illustration  or  two  from 
the  human  body  showing  what  can  easiest  be 


no      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

explained  as  directive  evolution.  Most  of  the 
mammalia  have  tails  and  find  them  useful;  man 
needs  none  and  has  none.  Even  the  monkeys 
have  tails,  but  as  we  come  to  the  large  anthropoid 
apes  the  tails  pass  away.  The  mandril  has  a 
short  tail,  the  gibbon,  chimpanzee,  orang-outang, 
and  gorilla  have  none.  And  yet  they  live  in  trees, 
and  a  tail  would  seem  to  be  as  useful  for  them 
for  protection  against  falling  as  for  the  smaller 
monkeys.  But  man  is  not  arboreal,  and  for  him 
a  tail  would  be  an  incumbrance.  It  looks  as  if  the 
passing  away  of  the  tail  in  the  apes  nearest  to 
man  anticipated  and  prepared  the  way  for  man. 

I  would  take  one  other  change  of  structure  in 
the  latest  stages  of  evolution,  which  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  anticipating  man's  moral  nature. 
The  hymen  in  the  human  female  has  no  known 
use  or  purpose  except  that  of  assuring  virginity. 
It  is  not  found  in  the  lower  mammalia;  but  ap- 
pears in  the  process  of  evolution  in  the  anthropoid 
apes,  where  it  is  of  no  advantage,  except  as  a 
promise  of  its  sociological  value  when  fully  devel- 
oped in  the  human  being.  Professor  Schulte,  of 
the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  New  York, 
informs  me  that  he  has  found  it  fairly  developed 
in  the  chimpanzee  and  the  orang-outang,  although 
farther  from  the  surface  than  in  the  human  species. 
It  can  scarcely  be  traced  in  such  of  the  lower 
monkeys  as  the  macaque.  Its  presence  is  a  clas- 
sical example  of  the  persistence  of  an  organ  always 


FORESIGHT  IN   EVOLUTION        iii 

destroyed,  showing  the  non-inheritance  of  in- 
jiiries  and  acquired  characters.  It  has  no  known 
physiological  value;  and  its  full  development  and 
use  is  found  in  the  human  family,  while  its  ap- 
pearance in  these  anthropoid  apes  appears  to  be 
anticipative.  That  is,  its  appearance  is  as  if  it 
had  been  intelHgently  planned  for,  and  not  pro- 
duced in  a  haphazard,  unpremeditated  way.  Its 
moral  value  is  dwelt  upon  in  the  Mosaic  legisla- 
tion, Deut.  2  2  :  13-21. 

Indeed  all  life  is  prophetic,  works  for  an  end 
in  the  future — so  cell  joins  cell  to  form  a  fibril  of 
a  muscle.  The  case  of  the  eye  is  only  an  extreme 
illustration.  We  call  it  law,  but  that  simply  gives 
a  name  to  the  problem  of  mystery.  The  blood  in 
the  system  is  all  the  same  blood  chemically,  but 
the  force  we  call  life  will  here  choose  out  of  it  to 
repair  a  muscle,  there  the  skin,  there  the  bone, 
there  to  create  the  eye,  and  there  the  special 
secretions  of  the  body.  We  may  be  told  that 
each  part  attracts  what  is  needed  from  the  blood 
for  its  regeneration;  of  course  it  does — that  is 
what  we  see.  The  germ  cell  in  the  ovum  will 
draw  other  cells  to  itself  selectively,  and  these 
again  others  to  themselves,  to  form  all  these  dif- 
ferent parts,  bone,  muscle,  skin;  will  arrange  each 
in  its  place,  will  put  head,  body,  limbs,  and  organs 
each  in  its  own  order,  and  create  a  chicken  or  a 
child.  In  many  cases  it  will  repeat  this  process 
after  the  organism,  animal,  or  plant  is  fvdly  de- 


112      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

veloped.  The  worm  cut  in  two  will  regenerate 
itself  into  two  complete  individual  worms.  The 
salamander  will  grow  a  new  leg  or  eye  if  the 
organ  is  lost,  and  will  even  create  it  out  of  a  root 
strange  to  its  inheritance.  So  we  every  day  see 
from  the  wounded  trunk  or  root  of  a  tree  new 
adventitious  buds  break  out  where  no  buds  were 
before,  only  sap  and  bark.  Life  has  chosen  to 
produce,  where  needed,  a  new  creation,  for  a  pur- 
pose, with  what  looks  like  an  act  of  will.  The  biol- 
ogist tries  to  offer  an  explanation  of  this  remarka- 
ble selective,  directive  power.  He  assumes  that 
there  has  passed  into  the  germ  from  the  parents 
and  grandparents  nuclei  of  all  the  parts  possessed 
by  them,  gemmules  Darwin  called  them,  while 
Weissmann  gives  them  other  names,  determi- 
nants, biophors.  Possibly  such  germs  there  are, 
although  the  theory  is  now  much  discredited,  but 
nobody  has  ever  seen  these  conjectural  gemmules. 
They  are,  if  they  really  exist,  beyond  the  power 
of  the  microscope;  and  they  all  exist,  if  at  all,  in 
the  chromatin  of  the  nucleus  of  the  germ-cell. 
They  may  be  there,  but  there  is  no  objective  evi- 
dence for  them.  They  are  the  products  of  the 
deductive  imagination,  an  imagination  quite  legi- 
timate, but  not  confirmed  and  never  confirmable. 
These  brilliant  and  able  biologists  have  never 
told  us  how  it  happens  that  these  ultramicro- 
scopical  germs  have  ever  been  drawn  to  assemble 
and  compact  themselves  into  the  chromatin  of  the 


FORESIGHT  IN   EVOLUTION        113 

ovum  cell,  or  how  they  were  there  grown  or  created 
for  that  purpose  and  out  of  the  common  plasm  of 
the  blood.  If  such  gemmules  or  biophors  there 
be,  they  are  there  by  the  million,  but  the  directive 
force  that  generated  and  gathered  them  in  the 
germ-cell  so  that  they  might  be  ready  to  develop 
in  their  time  and  order  is  not  explained.  Nor  yet 
is  it  explained  or  explicable  how  or  why  these 
gemmules  or  biophors,  each  different  and  now 
crowded  together,  move  into  their  own  places  to 
develop  in  the  ovum  the  bird  or  the  man;  or,  in 
the  case  of  the  butterfly,  how  they  divide  into 
two  troops,  one  troop  hastening  to  form  the  cater- 
pillar, and  the  other  troop,  waiting  till  the  cater- 
pillar has  grown  big  and  then  disorganized  itself, 
that  it  may  march  forth  in  turn  to  create  the 
butterfly.  All  we  can  say  is  that  in  life  there  is 
a  selective,  predictive  force  that  looks  like  a 
foreseeing  Intelligence.     Why  not  call  it  God  ? 


CHAPTER  X 

NATURE'S   PREPARATION   FOR  MAN 

IN  a  previous  chapter  I  have  spoken  of  the 
qualities  of  inorganic  substances,  such  as  air, 
water,  carbonic  acid,  etc.,  which  fit  them  to 
support  the  forms  of  Hfe  which  were  to  appear 
upon  the  earth.  There  is  much  that  may  be  said 
as  to  these  vegetable  and  animal  forms  of  life 
which  anticipate,  and  prepare  the  way  for,  the 
appearance  of  man,  who  is  the  crown  of  creation, 
and  especially  of  civilized  man,  man  worth  while, 
man  more  than  a  beast. 

That  there  is  this  adaptation  between  man  and 
the  world  of  life  every  moment  proves.  But  we 
may  call  this  mere  good  luck,  if  there  be  luck,  or 
we  may  say  that  the  human  race  has  been  evolved 
so  as  to  fit  his  environment,  rather  than  that  an 
environment  has  been  prepared  for  him.  Beyond 
question  man  does  adapt  himself  to  his  environ- 
ment, improves  wild  grains  and  sows  and  reaps 
them  with  harrows  and  harvesters.  Man  is 
adapted  to  his  world,  but  it  may  also  be  that  the 
world  of  life  has  been  pre-adapted  to  his  needs. 
One  cannot  but  ask  this  question,  whether  we 
have  evolved  to  fit  the  product  of  natural  law  in 

114 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     115 

its  necessary  evolution,  or  whether  under  some 
sort  of  guidance  Nature  has  anticipated  our  needs 
and  made  preparation  for  them.  Whether  the 
latter  alternative  shall  seem  reasonable  will  de- 
pend mainly  on  whether  the  human  race  appears 
to  be  worth  the  foresight.  This  is  a  question  of 
large  and  momentous  import,  and  the  very  raising 
of  it  may  seem  both  pretentious  and  absurd. 
That  the  earth,  so  great,  so  diverse,  so  multiple 
in  all  its  grandeur  of  ocean  and  continent,  with  its 
prolificness  of  life,  animal  and  vegetable,  with  the 
sun  and  moon  that  attend  and  serve  and  rule  it, 
were  so  made  to  serve  man,  its  true  ruler,  man  who 
is  so  feeble,  who  lives  so  brief  a  day,  who  then 
passes  to  his  dust  just  as  does  the  gnat  that  teases 
him  and  the  tiger  that  eats  him,  may  seem  a 
monstrous  claim. 

But  think  again.  Man  is  the  very  crown  of 
all  known  visible  existence.  No  physical  force 
in  nature  is  to  be  compared  with  man.  Bulk  does 
not  measure  perfection.  Life,  no  matter  how  low, 
is  superior  to  any  mass  of  inert  matter.  The 
lichen  on  the  cliff  is  greater  than  the  cliff.  And 
far  above  the  life  of  the  tree,  or  the  life  of  the 
highest  animal,  is  man,  who  is  ruler  of  all,  as 
reason  is  more  than  mere  vitalism.  As  Zeus  chal- 
lenged against  his  supremacy  the  total  power  of 
all  the  gods  whom  he  could  hang  from  a  chain 
over  the  parapet  of  heaven,  so,  and  more  than  so, 
for  man  is  of  another  and  superior  class,   man 


ii6      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

matches  the  genius  of  his  wisdom  and  might 
against  all  hurricanes  and  billows  and  thunder- 
bolts, rides  the  waves,  drives  the  winds,  forces  the 
lightning  to  do  his  slightest  task,  the  infinite 
ether  to  strain  with  his  messages,  even  enslaves 
the  earth  and  the  mighty  sun  to  till  his  fields  and 
feed  him  with  corn  and  wine,  rebukes  savage  na- 
ture and  supplants  its  jungles  and  forests,  cover- 
ing the  earth  with  cities  and  towns  and  fields  of 
populous  plenty.  The  earth,  all  its  grass  and  herbs 
and  trees,  all  its  insects,  fishes,  birds,  and  beasts, 
is  ruled  by  man,  submits  to  his  will,  and  only 
his;  and  may  it  not  be  that  by  some  higher  pre- 
vision this  was  all  designed  and  directed,  which 
not  only  supplies  all  his  ruder  wants,  but  equally 
meets  all  the  higher  requirements  of  his  advanced 
civilization  ?  Most  certainly  so,  unless  science  re- 
fuses to  consider  the  hypothesis  of  God. 

No  one  else  has  so  definitely  presented  the  evi- 
dence that  the  world  of  life  has  been  prearranged 
by  a  higher  intelligence  for  the  uses  of  man  as 
has  Alfred  Russel  Wallace,  in  his  "The  World  of 
Life."  Have  not,  he  asks,  through  the  whole 
geologic  history,  the  vegetable  growths  been  pre- 
adapted  for  the  coming  human  and  animal  life? 
The  bulk  of  the  seed  of  maize,  wheat,  rye,  barley, 
and  rice  is  not  needed  for  its  own  propagation, 
but  is  needed  for  the  support  of  human  life  par- 
ticularly, and  in  a  less  measure  of  lower  animal 
life.     A  multitude  of  other  grasses  have  small,  in- 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     117 

conspicuous  seeds.  They  can  grow  just  as  well 
without  a  superabundant  supply  of  starch  and 
gluten.  Man  needs  them,  for  he  can  cook  his 
food,  which  cattle  cannot  do.  Yet  the  seeds  of 
these  cereal  grains  are  so  large  that  they  attract 
animals  to  eat  them,  and  they  would  be  likely  to 
become  extinct  but  for  the  fact  that  man  cul- 
tivates and  develops  them.  In  fact  most  of  them 
have  become  extinct,  or  nearly  so,  in  a  wild  state. 
As  man  depends  on  them,  so  they  depend  on 
man,  as  if  predestined,  foreordained  for  man. 
Man  could  hardly  have  reached  civilization  with- 
out them.  It  is  true  that  in  cultivation  these 
grains  have  increased  in  size,  but  even  in  their 
wild  state,  like  our  American  wild  rice  or  the  wild 
wheat  lately  found  in  Palestine,  they  attracted 
human  attention  for  food.  A  similar  phenomenon 
we  observe  when  we  consider  other  vegetable  pro- 
ductions which  have  become  the  staple  food  of 
man,  such  as  the  date,  and  the  cocoanut,  the 
apple,  pear,  and  peach,  and  a  hundred  other  fruits, 
melons  and  roots.  They  are  made  to  fit  higher 
life.  Their  delicious  sugary  pulp  or  their  mass  of 
starchy  consistence  is  of  no  essential  use  to  these 
plants  and  trees  themselves,  but  rather  an  injury. 
They  are  too  attractive;  they  would  be  likely  to 
perish  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  as  in  the  animal 
world  have  the  dodo  and  the  passenger  pigeon, 
if  they  were  not  cultivated  and  conserved  under 
the  conditions  of  progressive  civilization. 


ii8      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

There  is  a  species  of  plant,  the  Psoralea  esculenta, 
growing  on  dry  ridges  in  the  Dakotas,  which  pro- 
duces a  hard,  compact  root  about  the  size  of  a 
walnut,  solid  with  starch.  The  Sioux  Indians 
search  far  abroad  for  it  and  tie  it  in  strings  for 
winter  food.  Of  course,  the  plant  takes  some  ad- 
vantage of  the  stored  starch  for  its  rapid  growth 
in  the  spring.  But  most  other  plants  live  and 
grow  equally  well  in  other  ways.  It  is  of  great 
advantage  to  the  migrating  Indians,  but  its  quality 
is  of  injury  to  it  so  far  as  survival  goes.  It  is  for 
man's  sake  chiefly  that  it  stores  food.  It  seems 
provided  for  human  use.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
grape,  the  huckleberry,  the  raspberry,  the  black- 
berry, the  currant,  the  gooseberry,  and  other 
plants  that  produce  delicious  fruits  whose  main 
purpose  is  evidently  not  for  themselves.  They 
grow  wild,  uncultivated.  Nature  provides  these 
berries  for  human  and  animal  consumption,  while 
therein  assuring  their  own  dispersion.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  in  their  provision  some  sort  of  design 
which  has  its  end  in  man. 

Yet  not  for  man  only.  All  animal  life  feeds  on 
vegetable  life.  The  plant,  the  tree,  has  not  its 
end  in  itself,  but  in  that  which  it  feeds.  Have 
you  ever  watched  two  or  three  yellowbirds  tear- 
ing to  pieces  the  round  ball  of  a  dandelion  head  ? 
You  will  see  that  the  dandelion  lives  not  for  itself 
alone,  but  that  it  may  supply  the  wants  of  a 
higher  and  nobler  kind  of  life.  It  would  seem  as 
if  the  plant  were  made  in  anticipation  of  the  animal 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     119 

and  equally  that  the  animal  appeared  on  the  earth 
when  its  own  time  was  ripe  for  it.  I  do  not  find 
it  easy  to  believe  that  the  giraffe,  with  its  elon- 
gated neck,  was  the  slow  evolution  of  nature  until 
it  could  reach  the  branches  of  the  trees.  Some 
directive  force  or  intelligence  seems  to  have  pro- 
duced it  to  reach  its  special  food. 

In  various  ways  Nature  seems  to  have  antici- 
pated man,  and,  not  least,  man  as  civilized,  full- 
orbed,  as  if  Nature  were  working  definitely  for  a 
higher  end  not  yet  in  sight.  When  man  began 
to  feel  the  need  of  light  in  the  night-time  beyond 
that  of  the  torch,  he  found  oil  in  nuts,  and  animal 
fats,  and  soon  hunted  the  northern  seas  for  the 
blubber  of  the  whale.  Then  when  that  source 
was  exhausted,  we  burned  the  essence  of  the  sap 
of  the  pine  till  that  began  to  fail  with  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  forests.  Then  the  earth  opened  its 
supply  of  oil  laid  up  many  thousands  of  years 
ago  for  just  this  necessity.  No  doubt  Nature  in 
her  own  processes  had  laid  up  this  great  treasure 
of  mineral  oil  as  a  by-product  of  superabundant 
vegetable  life  of  a  geologic  age,  just  as  she  had 
laid  up  and  had  previously  opened  to  us  her  store 
of  coal  to  fit  a  stage  in  our  civilization.  Yet  there 
appears  to  be  an  extraordinary  congruousness  in 
the  antecedent  provision  of  just  what  we  should 
need.  It  looks  very  much  like  what  we  should 
call  a  good  providence  in  our  behalf.  Equally 
the  stored  masses  of  coal  in  the  earth  were  a  requi- 
site for  a  stage  in  human  civilization.     Our  cities 


I20      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

could  not  have  been  built  or  our  factories  run  on 
wood  for  fuel;  the  forests  could  not  have  sufficed. 
The  carboniferous  period  was  the  prophecy  of  the 
human  industry  of  modern  life,  ready  to  be  ful- 
filled when  the  time  was  ripe.  There  was  pre- 
adaptation, which  was  marvellously  lucky,  if  it 
were  not  purposive. 

The  metals  generally  afford  another  example. 
Iron  is  needed  for  civilization.  Originally  it  was 
disseminated  in  the  igneous  rocks.  When  these 
were  broken  up  then  came  the  red  earths,  followed 
by  new  concentrations  from  age  to  age  brought 
about  by  vegetation ;  it  was  not  till  later  periods 
that  the  greatest  concentration  took  place.  Iron 
was  not  needed  till  man  appeared.  Much  the 
same  is  true  of  gold.  The  leaner  ones  were  pul- 
verized by  natural  processes,  and  then  concen- 
trated by  gravity  in  water  until  the  rich  placers 
were  formed  just  before  man  arrived  to  need  and 
seek  it  there. 

At  a  primitive  stage,  when  hardly  superior  to 
the  higher  apes,  we  can  conceive  of  man  as  taking 
for  his  uses  a  club  from  a  fallen  tree,  or  a  conveni- 
ent stone.  On  the  famous  Phoenician  bowl  of 
Praeneste  such  a  cave-man  is  represented  with  a 
stone  in  his  hand  pursuing  a  hunter  in  his  chariot. 
He  looks  no  better  than  an  ape,  and  Clermont- 
Ganneau  called  him  an  ape.  Stones  are  neces- 
sarily abundant,  and  handy,  and  here  is  no  evi- 
dence of  preadaptation  of  the  stone  for  the  uses 
of  man  reaching  for  civilization  by  means  of  a 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     121 

tool.  But  the  next  stage  is  to  supply  himself  with 
a  better  weapon,  a  bow.  That  requires  a  peculiar, 
elastic  sort  of  wood,  not  like  the  pine,  or  cedar, 
or  oak,  but  an  ash  or  yew,  or  some  other  sort  of 
elastic  wood.  It  is  ready  for  him  as  soon  as  he 
wants  it.  It  was  not  necessary  in  the  order  of 
nature  that  the  special  quality  of  elasticity  should 
be  supplied  by  the  ash,  but  it  was  necessary  for 
man's  upward  progress  that  the  ash  should  ante- 
cedently be  provided  for  his  use  when  he  should 
need  it.  Doctor  Wallace  adduces  this  as  a  pre- 
adaptation. I  would  not  definitely  assert  it,  but 
it  is  a  plausible  if  not  quite  palpable  conclusion 
that  some  directive  purpose  provided  the  elastic 
wood  for  the  primitive  bow.  To  be  sure,  we  may 
insist  that  nature,  through  her  superabundant 
vitality,  quite  unconsciously  reaches  out  in  every 
direction  for  every  possible  quality,  and  so  blindly 
hits  on  elasticity  in  the  ash,  as  it  does  on  pith  in 
the  alder  or  pliability  in  the  osier;  and  yet  the 
multitude  of  similar  happy  adaptations  in  plant 
and  animal  life  for  the  uses  of  civilization  forces 
us  to  consider  whether  some  purposive  and  direc- 
tive force  has  not  anticipated  the  human  need  and 
provided  for  it.  I  do  not  mean  to  argue  that  flint 
was  made  just  for  man's  use  as  a  tool,  or  that  the 
reed  was  made  hollow  that  man  might  use  it  as 
a  blow-gun,  for  the  reed's  own  need  of  strength 
is  explanation  enough  of  its  evolution.  I  only  in- 
stance the  case  of  the  ash  or  yew  as  illustrating 
how  the  preadaptation  of  a  quality  not  necessary 


122      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

for  the  tree  was  imperative  for  the  use  of  man  in 
his  early  stage  of  progressive  culture,  as  if  pre- 
arranged for  his  needs. 

Doctor  Wallace  instances  a  similar  adaptation 
to  man's  uses  in  the  matter  of  navigation,  intro- 
ducing it  with  this  general  statement: 

Taking  first  the  innumerable  different  kinds  of  wood, 
whose  qualities  of  strength,  lightness,  ease  of  cutting  and 
planing,  smoothness  of  surface,  beauty,  and  durability 
are  so  exactly  suited  to  the  needs  of  civilized  man  that  it 
is  almost  doubtful  if  he  could  have  reached  civiHzation 
without  them.  The  considerable  range  in  their  hardness, 
in  their  durability  when  exposed  to  the  action  of  water 
or  of  the  soil,  in  their  weight  and  their  elasticity,  renders 
them  serviceable  to  him  in  a  thousand  ways  which  are 
totally  removed  from  any  use  made  of  them  by  the  lower 
animals.— A.  R.  Wallace,  "The  World  of  Life,"  p.  350. 

Doctor  Wallace  shows  that  but  for  the  existence 
of  wood  having  just  the  qualities  necessary  for 
the  building  of  boats  and  ships  the  whole  course 
of  history  would  have  been  different,  and  perhaps 
civilization  could  not  have  been  developed.  The 
Mediterranean  would  have  been  as  impassable  as 
the  Atlantic,  and,  later,  America  could  not  have 
been  discovered,  and  Australia  and  probably 
South  Africa  would  have  been  unknown.  All  this 
knowledge  and  civilization  depend  on  certain  quali- 
ties in  vegetable  growth  not  needed  by  the  lower 
animals,  and  no  more  by  the  trees  themselves, 
which  could  equally  have  performed  without  them 
all  their  chemical  functions  in  the  absorption  of 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     123 

carbon  and  the  transpiration  of  oxygen,  as  they 
did  in  the  geologic  period  of  the  acrogens  when 
the  carboniferous  measures  were  laid,  and  could 
have  satisfied  all  the  needs  of  the  unintelligent 
animal  world.  These  qualities  are  useful  to  man, 
to  man  only,  and  they  came  into  plant  history, 
as  it  would  seem,  in  anticipation  of  the  time  when 
man  should  make  them  useful;  acquired  late  in 
the  process  of  the  ages,  just  when  needed,  quite 
as  they  would  appear  if  some  directive  purpose 
and  impulse  had  prearranged  their  occurrence. 

Again,  Wallace  calls  attention  to  the  countless 
list  of  the  minor  by-products  of  vegetable  life 
which  are  of  such  immense  advantage  to  man  in 
his  advance  in  civilization  and  comfort,  enjoy- 
ment, and  health.  Such  are  the  multitude  of 
drugs  and  medicines,  of  which  opium  and  quinine 
are  examples.  The  milky  juice  of  the  poppy  may 
be  of  use  to  it  in  resisting  drouth,  but  why  should 
it  also  deposit  morphine  useful  only  to  men  ? 
The  cinchona  bark  might  be  as  serviceable  to  the 
tree  without  the  quinine  in  it,  but  it  is  needed  for 
man.  What  is  true  of  these  and  many  other 
vegetable  drugs  is  true  also  of  thousands  of  other 
by-products  of  vegetable  life,  balsams,  gums, 
resins,  dyes,  spices,  perf times,  which  if  in  any 
measure  and  degree  of  advantage  to  the  plant, 
are  only  subsidiarily  so,  and  not  necessary;  but 
which  are  of  great  advantage  to  man,  and  particu- 
larly to  civilized  man,  and  will  be  for  a  million 


124      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

years  to  come.  Can  we  believe  that  the  fragrance 
of  the  rose  or  the  violet  was  essential  to  the  plant 
itself  ?  Its  color  was  enough  to  attract  insects 
without  its  odor  which  seems  added  for  our  delec- 
tation. A  multitude  of  plants  have  for  their  own 
advantage  developed  a  thick  sap,  which  is  enough 
for  their  protection;  but  a  few  have  added  to  it 
something  which  allows  it  to  harden  into  the 
extraordinary  qualities  of  india-rubber,  of  advan- 
tage not  to  the  tree  but  to  man.  Without  that 
peculiar  combination  of  qualities  man  could 
neither  have  created  the  submarine  telegraph- 
cable  nor  ridden  the  automobile.  He  finds  the 
rubber  as  it  were  foreordained  for  his  own  use 
rather  than  for  the  use  of  the  rubber-tree. 

Take  as  an  example  the  trees  and  plants  that 
supply  us  with  sugar,  a  very  important  element  in 
our  comfort.  We  find  it  in  certain  species  of  maple. 
Other  maples  do  not  have  it,  do  not  need  it.  But 
it  has  been  of  importance  to  man,  as  if  put  there 
for  his  advantage.  All  the  more  is  this  true  of 
the  sugar-cane  and  the  sugar-beet.  Other  reeds 
and  other  plants  of  the  beet  family  have  a  juice 
that  is  not  sweet.  Here  is  a  special  provision 
useful,  almost  necessary,  for  man,  supplied  to 
him  when  he  comes  to  need  it.  Because  it  is  not 
essential  to  the  plant  or  tree  but  is  essential  to 
man  it  appears  as  if  it  were  the  result  of  some 
directive  evolution  in  his  behalf.  I  do  not  say 
that  this  evidence  is  conclusive,  but  it  is  of  the 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     125 

same  sort  and  value  as  much  other  probable  evi- 
dence on  which  we  must  depend  in  life. 

In  the  matter  of  clothing  the  realms  of  life  seem 
to  have  united  in  anticipating  the  wants  of  man 
as  he  advances  into  civilization.  The  rude  man 
emerging  from  the  brute  needed  in  warm  countries 
no  clothing,  and  in  a  colder  climate  was  satisfied 
with  the  lion's  skin  of  Hercules,  or  the  pelts  of 
his  sheep  and  goats.  But  growing  nicety  de- 
manded other  garments,  and  the  sheep  supplied 
wool,  the  bolls  of  a  plant  offered  the  fibres  of 
cotton,  and  the  silkworm  spun  for  man  its  cocoon. 
The  silkworm  might  have  been  protected  equally, 
like  other  grubs,  with  a  hard  case;  the  seeds  of 
the  cotton  did  not  need  so  so^t  a  bed,  for  a  mul- 
titude of  congeneric  plants  are  without  it;  and 
the  sheep  might  have  resisted  the  cold  with  such 
a  covering  as  other  animals  of  its  sort  find  ade- 
quate. But  these  specialties  of  growth  not  neces- 
sary for  them  are  needed  for  man;  and  they  are 
provided  as  man  needs  them,  not  the  sheep,  the 
worm,  or  the  plant.  Is  it  too  much  to  see  in 
these  and  in  a  multitude  of  similar  cases  some 
directive  prevision  and  plan  ? 

Yet  it  will  easily  be  replied  that  Nature  is  not 
all  our  kind  mother.  The  argument  can  be  turned 
the  other  way,  for  Nature  produces  not  only  valu- 
able drugs,  spices,  gums,  essences,  oils,  etc.,  but 
also  poisons  that  endanger  his  life,  while  a  multi- 
tude of  weeds,  innocuous  in  a  state  of  savagery, 


126      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

appear  to  pester  his  agriculture  as  he  rises  in  the 
scale  of  civilization.  This  is  true,  and  in  its  mea- 
sure it  favors  the  conclusion  that  Nature  works 
indiscriminately,  and  in  every  direction,  to  pro- 
duce anything  and  everything,  good  or  bad  that 
may  arise;  but  they  are  comparatively  few,  and 
have  their  protective  uses  as  do  spines  and  thorns ; 
and  if  beasts  that  graze  are  able  to  discover  and 
avoid  them,  the  same  is  true  of  intelligent  man, 
not  to  speak  of  their  value  as  drugs.  Equally  it 
is  not  the  careful  farmer  that  allows  himself  to 
be  much  troubled  by  weeds. 

Yet  Doctor  Wallace's  argument,  it  appears  to 
me,  must  not  be  pressed  too  far.  The  starch  of 
the  potato  is  valuable  for  man,  but  the  deadly 
nightshade  belongs  to  the  same  family,  and  is  so 
specialized  as  to  be  dangerous  to  man.  In  the 
same  family  and  the  same  field  we  find  foods  and 
poisons,  fragrances  and  stenches,  the  flower  and 
the  thorn.  If  we  can,  as  Doctor  Wallace  has  done, 
gather  the  delights  of  sight,  taste,  and  smell  found 
in  the  vegetable  world  into  one  ''bundle  of  myrrh," 
to  strengthen  our  faith  in  the  Creator  who  fore- 
saw the  needs  of  his  creature  man,  it  would  also 
be  easy  to  gather  under  the  shadow  of  the  upas- 
tree  the  disagreeable,  the  pernicious,  and  the  fatal. 
The  spicy  and  the  sweet  are  matched  in  some 
measure  with  the  acrid  and  the  fetid. 

This  is  all  true.  Nature  does  not  coddle  us 
with  a  satiety  of  sweets.     The  rose  is  beset  with 


NATURE'S  PREPARATION  FOR  MAN     127 

thorns.  We  would  not  have  it  otherwise.  Yet 
common  experience  testifies  that  the  useful  vastly 
outweighs  and  outnumbers  the  harmful.  E very- 
green  field  and  every  wooded  hill  testifies  to  this. 
The  immense  preponderance  of  good  does  not 
seem  quite  fortuitous.  If  such  preponderance 
there  is,  may  we  not  presume  that  there  was  pur- 
pose in  it  ?  If  man  is  the  very  crown  of  all  Na- 
ture's aspirations,  and  if  provision  was  made  for 
him  in  physical  nature,  in  the  composition  of  the 
oceans,  of  sea,  and  sky,  may  we  not  also  presume 
that  the  abundant  supply  of  the  organic  products 
of  Nature,  and  their  qualities  absolutely  essential 
for  man's  Hfe  and  progress,  give  a  presumption 
that  they  too  anticipated  man  ?  The  bulk  of 
them  and  the  nicety  of  their  adaptations  support 
such  a  view.  They  fit  into  oiir  wants  with  the 
exactitude  of  the  junctions  of  a  dissected  map. 
While  there  is  no  question  of  the  miscellaneous- 
ness  of  the  productions  of  nature,  yet  they  are 
not  indiscriminate.  The  useful  animals  and  plants 
that  come  into  existence  with  man  vastly  exceed 
those  that  are  pernicious;  there  is  a  place  in  the 
scheme  of  things  for  the  tiger's  tooth  and  the 
spines  of  the  cactus.  While  too  much  must  not 
be  made  of  Doctor  Wallace's  argument  in  "The 
World  of  Life,"  yet  its  cumulative  bearing  ap- 
pears to  me  to  have  weight  as  indicating  that 
there  was  a  control  in  nature  which  guided  the 
operation  of  its  laws  for  the  benefit  of  man. 


CHAPTER  XI 

REASON  AND  SOUL 

"X  X  TE  know  the  world  of  existences  and  forces 
^^  under  three  forms,  that  of  matter,  that 
of  life,  and  that  of  thought.  In  preced- 
ing chapters  I  have  indicated  how  the  world  of 
matter  and  the  world  of  life  appear  to  me  to 
bear  witness  to  a  superior  Intelligence  which  has 
created  or  guided  them.  I  now  come  to  consider 
whether  the  world  of  thought  has  a  similar  origin, 
or  has  merely  grown,  in  an  evolutionary  way, 
out  of  the  worlds  of  matter  and  life. 

The  forces  of  matter,  life,  and  thought  are 
totally  diverse  from  each  other.  Life  is  a  phenom- 
enon of  tremendous  significance.  It  marks  an 
absolutely  different  stage  in  the  operation  of  na- 
ture. Physical  forces  can  give  us  rocks,  moun- 
tains, continents,  rivers,  oceans,  winds,  lightning, 
and  rain,  and  their  continued  operation  would  re- 
duce the  earth  to  a  degradation  of  morass  and  sea. 
But  life  brings  a  new  force  which  fights  physical 
forces,  produces  forms,  vegetable  and  animal, 
which  operate  and  direct  to  their  own  ends  all 
physical  forces,  and  exercise  a  dominance  over 
them.     But  there  is  a  third  stage  in  the  opera- 

128 


REASON  AND  SOUL  129 

tions  of  nature.  As  organic  life  is  of  a  different 
order  from  inert  matter,  so  mind  is  of  yet  another 
order  from  either,  and  vastly  higher  than  they. 
With  the  animal  kingdom  there  came  in  mind, 
not  possessed  by  the  physical  elements,  and  no 
more  by  the  vegetable  kingdom.  It  is,  in  some 
degree,  a  characteristic  of  all  animal  life.  The 
lowest  forms  have  intelligence  enough  to  feel  for 
their  food.  As  higher  forms  appear  they  learn  to 
avoid  danger,  to  search  abroad  for  their  sustenance, 
to  swim,  to  fly,  to  run,  till  conscious  reason  appears 
in  man  and  is  supreme  over  the  course  of  nature. 
As  I  have  found  it  hard  to  believe  that  the 
activities  of  life  can  be  fully  explained  by  the  laws 
of  physics,  although  life  constantly  uses  the  laws 
of  physics,  so  I  am  not  easily  persuaded  that  men- 
tality, with  its  crowning  power  of  will,  is  explained 
imder  the  laws  of  life.  Such  is  the  teaching  of 
those  who  hold  that  thinking  is  nothing  more  than 
brain  action.  Beyond  all  question  the  brain  is 
active  in  all  mental  processes;  and  one  can  make 
the  hypothesis  that  the  brain  is  all  there  is  to  it, 
that  its  province  is  to  produce,  secrete  thought, 
feeling,  will,  consciousness,  just  as  the  liver  se- 
cretes bile;  or  one  can  take  the  other  hypothesis 
that  the  brain  is  an  instrument  which  is  used  in 
the  production  of  mental  activities  by  some  sepa- 
rate, outside,  immaterial  power  somewhat  as  a 
harp,  inactive  and  silent  itself,  is  the  instrument 
of  music,  responsive  to  the  fingering  of  the  musi- 


13  o      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

cian.  In  the  latter  view  one  could  think  of  the 
brain  either  as  responsive  to  the  influence  of  some 
universal  force,  as  the  wind  plays  on  an  aeolian 
harp,  or  as  affected  by  the  action  of  an  individual 
mind  attached  to  itself  alone.  That  would  be  the 
man's  soul,  and  this  view  has  held  the  field  the 
world  over,  and  in  all  ages.  This  is  mainly  be- 
cause the  phenomenon  of  will  is  evidently  the 
action  of  individual  and  not  general  consciousness. 
We  know,  if  we  know  anything,  that  we  feel,  we 
think,  and  we  will,  each  for  himself.  We  may, 
then,  dismiss  the  supposition  of  some  universal 
force  blowing  upon  the  brain  or,  to  use  the  figure 
of  the  ocean,  bubbling  up  into  it  as  producing  all 
its  activities,  whether  we  call  that  force  God  or 
anything  else.  Under  the  hypothesis  of  some 
external  power  using  the  brain  as  instrument  our 
consciousness  puts  it  under  the  control  of  each 
individual's  own  mind,  but  may  leave  the  ques- 
tion open  whether  other  minds  can  also  use  it. 
We  have  then  two  alternatives  left  to  consider: 
one  that  thought  is  entirely  a  function  of  the 
brain;  the  other  that  each  brain  has  its  own  rul- 
ing mind,  separate  from  matter,  which  uses  the 
brain  as  its  implement. 

The  physiologist  cannot  decide  which  of  these 
two  hypotheses  is  true.  His  business  is  to  study 
the  activities  of  the  brain,  and  he  may  see  nothing 
but  the  brain  acting,  while  the  psychologist  may 
see  something  else. 


REASON   AND   SOUL  131 

The  knife  and  the  microscope  can  investigate 
only  the  material  brain  and  discern  how  it  works. 
If  there  is  mind,  it  is  as  invisible  as  the  wind  which 
we  know  blows  on  a  harp.  It  might  seem  a  hope- 
ful method  of  further  research  to  inquire  whether 
the  law  of  conservation  of  energy  applies  to 
mental  action.  Here  we  find  that  every  thought 
or  feeling  or  volition  is  accompanied  by  a  certain 
action  of  the  brain  cells,  and  flow  of  blood,  so  that 
the  brain  is  affected  by  every  mental  activity. 
Yet  this  is  not  conclusive ;  there  may  be  something 
else.  Even  so  the  harp  is  affected  in  the  move- 
ment of  its  strings  and  the  vibration  of  its  frame 
by  the  finger  of  the  player,  so  that  the  amount  of 
force  in  the  finger  is  exactly  matched  by  the  energy 
of  these  vibrations.  But  it  is  the  player  that 
plays  the  tune,  not  the  harp.  In  the  case  of  the 
brain,  however,  it  is  impossible  to  prove  that  any 
Joule's  law  is  applicable  to  the  transformation  of 
brain  matter  or  brain  force  into  an  equivalent 
amount  of  thought  force.  In  his  Presidential 
Address  before  the  British  Association  in  its 
physiology  section,  191 1,  Professor  J.  S.  Mac- 
donald  says: 

There  is  no  one  at  the  present  time  who  is  in  a  position 
to  discuss  the  energy  transformation  of  the  central  ner- 
vous system.  Further,  there  is  certainly  no  one  capable 
of  dealing  with  such  peculiarities  as  might  arise  in  the 
energy  transformation  of  that  part  of  the  brain  which  is 
associated  with  the  mind. 


132      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 
He  further  says: 

There  is  no  scientific  evidence  to  support  or  to  rebut 
the  statement  that  the  brain  is  possibly  affected  by  influ- 
ences other  than  those  that  reach  it  by  the  definite  paths 
proceeding  from  the  sense-organs  and  from  the  different 
receptive  surfaces  of  the  body.  It  is  still  possible  that  the 
brain  is  an  instrument  traversed  freely,  as  the  ear  by  sound, 
by  an  unknown  influence  which  finds  resonance  within  it. 
Possibly,  indeed,  that  the  mind  is  a  complex  of  such  reso- 
nances, music  for  which  the  brain  is  no  more  than  the 
instrument,  individual  because  the  music  of  a  single  harp, 
rational  because  of  the  orderly  structure  of  the  harp. 
Consider  such  a  possibility  .  .  .  inasmuch  as  an  instru- 
ment shaped  in  the  embryo  of  a  certain  set  of  conditions 
may  in  due  course  of  time  become  the  play  of  some  new 
influence  which  has  taken  no  immediate  part  in  fashion- 
ing it.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  point  beyond  this  state- 
ment that  I  find  it  difficult  to  refrain  from  using  the  word 
soul. 

Professor  Macdonald's  illustration  appears  to 
me  to  have  argument  in  it.  The  ear  is  a  delicate 
organ,  inactive  and  useless  until  mysteriously  ex- 
cited by  a  vibration  from  without.  Just  so  the 
eye  more  delicately  constructed  must  wait  for  the 
access  of  light  before  it  can  see;  and  even  so  it 
may  be  that  the  yet  more  delicate  organism  of 
the  brain,  which  is  torpid  in  sleep  or  under  anaes- 
thesia, is  an  instrument  which  is  traversed  as  freely 
as  is  the  ear  or  the  eye,  by  an  exterior  influence 
which  finds  resonance  within  it.  That  influence 
wovild  be  the  soul. 


REASON  AND  SOUL  133 

We  see;  but  we  do  not  see  what  it  is  that 
makes  us  see.  We  have  sight  and  the  organ  of 
sight;  but  because  we  cannot  see  the  cause  of 
sight  which  affects  the  eye  we  assume  and  be- 
lieve in  an  invisible  ether  and  its  invisible  waves. 
We  cannot  see  the  cause  which  affects  the  brain 
and  gives  us  thought,  but  we  are  quite  within  our 
rights  when  we  assume  that  something  works  on 
and  through  the  brain,  and  we  call  it,  invisible  as 
it  is,  mind  or  soul.  We  have  the  right  to  believe 
that  it  is  something  more  and  other  than  brain, 
because  the  brain  is  purely  material,  matter  that 
has  life  in  it,  and  its  products  must  be  material, 
as  all  products  of  living  matter  are — seeds,  fruits, 
muscles,  organs.  Thinking  is  not  material.  It 
is  very  hard  to  conceive  of  thought  as  a  function 
of  matter,  even  of  the  brain,  for  we  see  in  it  noth- 
ing akin  to  material  forces.  Thought  belongs  to 
a  different  plane.  It  is  immaterial,  spiritual,  not 
physical.  What  is  a  thought  ?  Can  you  put  it 
in  balances  and  weigh  it  ?  Can  you  measure  its 
bulk  ?  Has  it  dimensions  ?  By  what  yardstick 
can  we  measure  love  and  hate  ?  By  what  mi- 
crometer can  we  compare  the  relative  values  of 
ideas  ?  Conscience  has  no  relation  to  weight  or 
bulk.  No  physiologist  can  tell  us  that  Shake- 
speare exhausted  more  brain  tissue  in  writing 
''The  Tempest"  than  Walt  Whitman  in  compos- 
ing ''Leaves  of  Grass,"  or  that  Virgil's  brain  was 
more  worn  away  than  that  of  Msevius. 


134      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

Yet  it  is  for  another  reason  chiefly  that  the 
boor  or  the  philosopher  beheves  he  has  a  sotd,  a 
proof  that  depends  on  consciousness.  He  feels 
that  there  is  something  in  him  that  is  lord  of  his 
body.  He  originates  purpose,  will,  and  his  body 
serves  and  obeys  him.  He  cannot  think  of  the 
body  as  himself.  He  is  its  master;  it  is  his  slave. 
The  master  must  be  something  other  than  the 
slave.  He  does  not  see  it,  and  he  thinks  of  it  as 
something  spiritual.  It  is  then  easy  for  the  sav- 
age to  imagine  that  in  dreams  his  soul  leaves  the 
body  and  wanders  off  to  visit  other  souls.  The 
philosopher  regards  the  dreams  as  mere  fancies  of 
imagination,  but  he  knows  that  something  in  himi, 
or,  rather,  the  real  self  has  initiative,  originates 
thought,  exercises  will,  and  using  the  reservoir  of 
the  brain  sends  messages  by  way  of  the  nerves, 
which  are  but  the  extensions  of  the  brain  to  all 
the  body.  To  him  the  whole  nervous  system, 
brain  as  well  as  the  spinal  cord  and  the  nerves, 
seems  all  to  be  but  his  instruments,  the  brain  like 
the  boiler  of  a  locomotive  from  which  power  goes 
through  steam-pipes  and  cylinders  to  move  the 
pistons  and  wheels,  while  the  engineer's  will  con- 
trols it.  So  I  look  at  the  operation  of  the  mind 
and  the  body.  The  brain  is  the  steam-chest,  the 
blood  is  the  furnace  which  supplies  its  force,  the 
steam-pipes  are  the  nerves  which  carry  the  force 
where  needed,  and  the  remaining  machinery  cor- 
responds to  the  parts  of  the  body  which  obey  the 


REASON  AND  SOUL  135 

message  of  the  nerves.  But  back  of  all  is  that 
which  gives  orders,  which  we  call  the  soul,  the  en- 
gineer of  the  great  human  machine,  which  knows, 
thinks,  wills,  while  brain  and  cord  and  nerves  are 
its  obedient  servants.  Man  wills;  he  cannot 
think  that  matter  wills.  There  is  something  of 
the  same  intangible  order  as  is  the  will  itself  that 
he  feels  is  ruler,  originator,  initiator,  something 
more  than  the  material  body.  If  there  is  nothing 
beyond  the  working  of  the  cerebro-spinal  nervous 
system,  then,  as  it  appears  to  me,  there  can  be  no 
free-will;  all  must  go  on  mechanistically.  But  it 
does  not  go  on  mechanistically.  ''No  physics, 
no  mathematics,"  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  *'can 
calculate  the  orbit  of  a  house-fly." 

Such  seems  to  me  to  be  the  reason  why  all  ex- 
cept some  philosophers  have  come  to  believe  in 
the  existence  of  a  soul  within,  or  related  to,  the 
body.  It  carries  conviction  to  my  mind,  and  I 
do  not  think  it  is  because  I  and  all  other  people 
wish  to  believe. 

What  relation  does  belief  in  the  immateriality 
of  the  human  soul  have  with  belief  in  God  ?  Just 
this,  that  the  existence  of  many  millions  of  human 
souls,  all  immaterial,  all  invisible,  does  away  with 
any  presumption  against  the  existence  of  a  superior, 
or  supreme,  immaterial,  invisible  being  related  to 
the  imi verse  which  he  may  control,  even  as  the 
htmian  soul  controls  its  body.  The  argument  is 
not  absolute  and  final;  one  can  yet  disbelieve. 


136      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

The  step  is  easy,  however,  from  the  human  soul 
to  the  existence  of  a  soultof  the  universe,  which 
yet  is  not  the  universe,  but  which  rules  over  it  as 
the  human  soul  rules  the  body. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT 

THE  reason  of  man,  and  to  a  less  degree  that 
of  animals,  is  something  to  wonder  at  and 
admire;  but  the  instinct  of  animals,  and 
particiilarly  of  insects,  is  even  stranger,  more  mys- 
terious. Reason  accomplishes  ends  and  knows 
why  it  uses  the  means;  instinct  does  as  much  but 
does  not  understand  why  it  does  them.  Reason 
rises  so  high  in  the  realm  of  freedom  that  instinct 
is  not  needed;  for  it  makes  its  own  rules,  finds 
new  ways  to  meet  every  new  condition,  uses  tools 
instead  of  feet  and  horns,  thinks,  plans,  contrives, 
combines,  controls  the  forces  of  nature,  and  cre- 
ates civilization.  In  this  highest  realm  of  nature 
we  seem  to  see  God  walking  in  the  garden,  but 
may  we  not  see  him  quite  as  really  in  instinct  ? 

Instinct  does  the  works  of  reason  without  its 
reasons,  without  knowing  why,  without  being 
taught.  The  worker  bee  just  hatched  from  the 
pupa  state  flies  unaccompanied  to  a  distant  flower, 
gathers  its  honey,  returns  to  the  hive,  and  deposits 
it  in  a  cell,  and  all  without  knowing  that  the 
honey  placed  there  is  to  be  food  for  the  next 
generation.  We  know  why  we  store  our  provi- 
sions; the  bee  knows  nothing,  simply  does  it. 

137 


138      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

Both  instinct  and  reason  are  found  in  man, 
but  instinct  is  soon  nearly  suppressed,  while  in 
the  lower  animals,  and  particularly  in  insects,  it 
is  reason  that  is  little  developed  and  instinct  con- 
trols. The  new-bom  child  takes  the  mother's 
breast  by  instinct,  and  for  a  period  all,  or  nearly 
all,  its  activities,  seem  to  be  instinctive;  but  in  a 
few  days  it  moves  its  eyes  for  a  dim  purpose,  and 
in  a  few  months  walks  about,  a  creature  of  rea- 
son and  will.  A  grown  man  is  conscious  of  scarce 
any  act  that  is  instinctive.  But  the  action  of  the 
bee  as  it  builds  its  honeycomb,  or  of  the  solitary 
wasp  when  it  provides  for  its  young,  may  be  re- 
garded as  wholly  controlled  by  instinct.  It  is  to 
be  considered  whether  these  actions  of  instinct 
can  be  regarded  as  purely  the  product  of  uncon- 
scious evolution,  or  whether  they  have  been  guided 
by  a  foreseeing,  superintending  intelligence. 

In  the  higher  vertebrates  it  would  seem  as  if 
some  forms  of  instinct  could  have  been  the  prod- 
uct of  normal  evolution.  The  instinct  which  sends 
wild  geese  from  their  nesting  summer  home 
to  escape  in  more  southern  lands  a  hungry  winter 
may  seem  to  have  its  origin  in  some  more  indefinite 
and  gradual  pushing  toward  more  abundant  food 
as  the  northern  supply  was  exhausted  with  the 
freezing  of  the  waters.  Those  which  happened 
to  do  this  once  may  have  followed  the  sun  back 
in  the  next  spring,  although  we  do  not  see  exactly 
why,  and  their  young  may  have  inherited,  so  it 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT      139 

is  said,  although  such  power  of  inheritance  is  not 
evident,  the  memory  of  the  spring  and  autumn 
journey.  It  is  not  clear  that  such  northern  nest- 
ing birds  could  have  survived  the  winters,  small 
insect-eating  birds,  before  they  learned  to  start, 
while  food  was  yet  sufficient,  for  their  journey  of 
thousands  of  miles  forth  and  back  every  year; 
but  perhaps  geology  may  help  us.  The  changes 
may  not  have  been  so  extreme  then  between  sum- 
mer and  winter,  and  the  annual  trip  may  not  have 
been  so  long.  Let  it  be  allowed  that  the  instinct 
of  birds  of  passage  may  have  developed  out  of 
the  slow  accidents  of  undesigned  advantage,  re- 
membered and  repeated  and  then  transmitted  to 
posterity;  yet  such  migration  hardly  touches  the 
fringe  of  the  problem  of  instinct.  It  has  to  do 
with  a  class  of  animal  life  that  possesses  the  mask 
of  reason. 

But  take  another  case,  instanced  by  Professor 
J.  A.  Thompson,  that  of  the  eel,  which  has  a  brain 
of  a  very  low  order.  Those  of  northern  Europe 
probably  begin  their  life  on  the  verge  of  the  deep 
sea  west  of  Ireland  and  southward  toward  the 
Canaries.  The  eel  rises  to  the  surface,  for  months 
a  small  transparent  larva.  After  a  year  it  is  one 
of  a  million  ''elvers"  passing  up  a  river.  Some 
have  travelled  three  thousand  miles.  Here  they 
grow,  but  do  not  breed.  They  return  to  the  deep 
sea  to  breed.  Can  this  be  explained  on  the  ma- 
chine theory  of  life  ?     Can  it  be  explained  by  any 


I40      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

happy  accident  of  environment  and  evolution? 
The  movements  seem  too  immense  and  complex 
to  be  thus  accounted  for,  without  some  intelli- 
gent guidance  in  the  process  of  evolution.  When 
I  consider  this  case,  which  can  be  matched  with 
the  migrations  of  salmon  and  many  other  fishes, 
I  begin  to  feel  more  doubt  whether  evolution  will 
explain  the  migrations  of  birds. 

Let  us  return  to  the  case  of  that  honey-bee  whose 
first  flight  has  led  it  safely  to  a  difficult  flower. 
Capture  it  now,  and  carry  it  about,  and  when  let 
fall  it  turns  around  and  flies  to  its  hive.  It  knows 
where  it  belongs;  it  has  a  strange  sense  of  direc- 
tion beyond  reason.  That  is  the  way  bee-hunters 
find  the  hole  into  which  bees  enter  in  a  hollow 
tree  in  the  forest.  I  cannot  see  how  that  sense 
of  direction  could  have  come  by  evolution,  seeing 
that  each  colony  has  a  new  hive  or  hollow  tree, 
and  has  to  be  born  with  a  separate  sense  of  direc- 
tion. You  can't  explain  the  flight  back  as  you 
can  the  return  flight  of  a  boomerang. 

Is  it  easy  to  conceive  how  among  bees  the  mar- 
vellous development  of  instinct  should  appear  in 
neither  the  male  nor  the  female,  the  drones  and 
the  queen  bee,  neither  of  which  do  any  work,  nor 
inherit  any  skill;  while  the  workers,  who  show 
such  marvellous  instinct  in  finding  the  flower  and 
expressing  its  sweet  and  finding  their  way  back  to 
the  hive,  and  then  building  the  waxen  cells  and 
filling  them  with  honey,  and  then  killing  the  use- 


THE  PROBLEM   OF  INSTINCT      141 

less  drones,  are  neuters,  sexless,  and  have  inherited 
none  of  their  skill  ?  Can  all  this  have  come  by 
the  slow  process  of  inheritance,  where  there  is  no 
sexual  inheritance  ?  Not  a  worker  will  transmit 
its  skill  to  its  progeny,  for  it  has  no  progeny,  and 
its  parentage  had  no  such  skill  to  transmit.  One 
cannot  help  thinking  that  this  purposive,  but  not 
inherited,  power  has  been  imposed  upon  the  bee 
from  some  outside  intelligence,  which  has  even 
taught  it  how  to  select  a  grub  in  one  of  the  cells 
and  nourish  it  to  be  the  future  queen.  And  what 
has  been  said  of  bees  can  be  said  of  ants,  whose 
colonies  are  divided  into  masters  and  slaves.  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  Virgil  says  in  the  fourth  of  his 
Georgics  that  bees  ''have  received  a  share  of  the 
divine  intelligence  and  drafts  from  the  heavens; 
for  God  pervades  all,  earth  and  the  expanse  of 
air,  and  the  deep  vault  of  heaven"  ? 

Of  the  various  phases  of  instinct  the  parental 
instinct  is  one  of  the  most  necessary,  essential  to 
the  continuance  of  the  species,  yet  apparently  in- 
explicable on  the  theory  of  evolution,  for  it  pro- 
vides for  the  future  of  the  young  of  which  only 
mammalia  and  birds  can  have  any  knowledge. 
And  in  the  case  of  birds  we  cannot  suppose  that 
they  have  any  knowledge  why  they  sit  for  weeks 
most  uncomfortably  on  their  eggs.  They  do  not 
know  that  young  birds  are  to  be  hatched  from  the 
eggs,  nor  do  they  know  the  eggs  must  be  kept 
warm.     They  simply  do  it  from  instinct.     It  is 


142      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  law  and  they  must.  But  we  can  see  no  way 
that  instinct  of  law  can  have  been  acquired  under 
the  mere  provisions  of  nature  through  develop- 
ment. The  human  race  has  this  parental,  or  at 
least  maternal,  instinct,  and  adds  to  it  reason. 
The  mammalia  have  it,  and  will  fight  for  their 
young,  at  least  till  they  are  weaned.  But  it  is 
among  the  insects,  which  know  nothing  of  their 
young,  that  the  most  remarkable  illustrations 
occur  of  the  parental  instinct. 

This  parental  instinct,  often  so  wonderfully  de- 
veloped, is  not  easily  explained  by  evolution.  In 
the  case  of  man,  who  has  reason,  a  plausible  ex- 
planation can  be  conceived.  The  mother  con- 
sciously carries  the  child  in  her  body,  anticipates 
its  birth,  thinks  much  about  it,  suffers  for  it  the 
pains  of  childbirth,  and  feels  the  necessity  of  suck- 
ling it.  Both  she  and  the  father  know  the  value 
of  the  child  as  he  grows  to  be  the  defender  and 
the  provider  of  the  home  and  the  tribe.  Mother- 
love  and  father-love  are  by  no  means  all  instinct. 
But  it  is  not  so  with  the  lower  animals.  They  do 
not  feel  the  eggs  or  the  young  growing  in  the  ma- 
ternal body.  They  have  no  sense  of  prospective 
value  of  the  young  when  they  shall  become  adult. 
What  is  done  for  the  young  is  a  burden  to  the 
parent.  The  selfish  instinct  would  lead  the  mother 
to  desert  her  offspring,  as  the  ostrich  is  said  to 
leave  its  eggs  to  hatch  in  the  warm  sand.  But 
parental  instincts  overcome  the  interest  of  the 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT      143 

parent.  This  appears  not  only  in  the  higher 
mammalia  and  birds,  but  also  in  fishes  and  in- 
sects which  will  never  have  any  knowledge  of 
their  young. 

Consider  the  case  of  the  cabbage-butterfly,  as 
one  of  many.  It  takes  pains  to  lay  its  eggs  on 
the  cabbage  on  which  its  young  must  feed,  but 
on  which  it  does  not  itself  feed.  We  call  this 
instinct,  but  by  what  power  or  what  evolution 
does  it  come  to  select  for  the  nidus  of  its  egg  the 
one  plant  on  which  its  young  must  feed?  It  is 
difficult  to  refer  this  instinct  to  the  slow  process 
of  eliminating  in  generation  after  generation  for 
many  tens  of  thousands  of  years  all  the  butterflies 
whose  grubs  did  not  happen  to  find  a  suitable  food 
in  the  cabbage.  But  even  so,  how  came  the  butter- 
fly to  choose  the  cabbage  to  lay  its  eggs  on,  par- 
ticularly when  it  never  has  seen  and  never  will 
see  its  progeny,  and  does  not  itself  feed  on  the 
cabbage  ?  To  be  sure,  as  a  caterpillar  it  fed  on 
the  cabbage,  and  it  might  be  said  that  somehow 
as  a  butterfly  it  remembered  its  previous  incarna- 
tion and  returned  to  its  first  love,  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  conceive  that  it  had  any  physical  basis 
for  such  memory,  when  we  consider  that  when  it 
passed  from  the  pupa  into  the  chrysalis  state  all 
its  interior  parts  were  disorganized  and  reduced 
to  pulp,  nervous  system  as  well  as  digestive,  and 
only  the  germinal  disks  left  which  were  to  reor- 
ganize the  butterfly  out  of  the  worm. 


144      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

Consider  the  parental  instinct  of  the  solitary- 
wasps  in  providing  for  their  young,  of  which  they 
will  know  nothing.  With  the  egg  they  put  a 
caterpillar  of  some  sort  which  will  be  food  for  the 
worm  when  hatched  from  the  egg.  They  choose 
different  victims,  of  which  one  has  a  single  ner- 
vous ganglion,  another  three  or  even  more.  They 
sting  it  in  one  or  three  or  more  places,  just  where 
the  ganglia  are,  as  if  with  as  much  knowledge  as 
a  surgeon,  so  as  to  paralyze  and  not  kill ;  and  they 
even  crush,  when  necessary,  the  head  of  the 
victim  so  that  it  can  live  inactive  until  the  wasp's 
eggs  can  hatch  and  it  can  supply  food  for  the  grub. 
Here  is  parental  instinct,  and  much  more,  too. 
We  have  an  extraordinary  surgical  skill  which 
Bergson  tries  to  explain  as  "a  sympathy"  (in  the 
etymological  sense)  between  the  wasp  and  its 
victim  which  teaches  it  from  within,  so  to  say, 
concerning  the  vulnerability  of  the  caterpillar. 
This  feeling  of  vulnerability,  he  says,  ''might  owe 
nothing  to  outward  perception,  but  result  from 
the  mere  presence  together  of  the  wasp  and  the 
caterpillar,  considered  no  longer  as  two  organisms, 
but  as  two  activities."  To  my  mind  this  is  a 
meaningless  explanation.  It  explains  nothing. 
They  are  two  organisms,  and  must  be  so  considered 
and  they  are  two  activities.  It  is  a  mad  attempt 
by  a  mist  of  words  to  escape  from  the  easier  ex- 
planation of  a  superior  intelligence  which  has 
taught  instinct  what  to  do.     I  do  not  know  why 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT      145 

teleology  may  not  be  as  legitimate  as  any  other 
device  of  philosophy.  But  I  agree  with  Bergson 
that  this  parental  instinct  and  this  clairvoyance 
are  not  to  be  explained  by  evolution. 

It  would  seem  impossible  to  explain  how  the 
parental  instinct,  and  particularly  the  paternal, 
could  have  come  by  any  sort  of  evolution  in  the 
case  of  certain  of  the  lowest  vertebrata,  toads  and 
fishes.  Says  the  German  naturalist,  Doctor  Wil- 
liam Berndt: 

Among  the  toads  there  are  fathers  which  apparently 
swallow  their  young,  that  is,  the  spawn;  but  the  paternal 
gullet  is  the  babies'  cradle  in  which  they  merrily  develop 
(Rhinoderma  darwini);  in  the  case  of  others  {Pipa  amer- 
icana)  the  young  pass  their  tenderest  youth  in  honey- 
comblike cavities  on  the  mother's  back,  in  which  the 
spawn  is  supposed  to  be  placed  by  the  father.  In  others 
still  {Alytes  obstetricanSy  the  well-known  obstetrical  toad 
or  nurse-frog),  the  father  acts  as  midwife.  He  twines 
the  chain  of  eggs  about  his  hind  legs  and  buries  himself 
alive  for  nearly  two  weeks,  until  they  are  ready  to  hatch. 

Another  one  of  many  remarkable  cases  of  pa- 
ternal care  is  that  of  the  Siamese  "fighting-fish." 
They  build  for  the  eggs  a  nest  of  foam  bubbles, 
and  the  eggs  are  deposited  in  it  to  hatch.  When 
the  young  fry  appear  it  is  the  father  first  that  de- 
votes himself  to  their  protection  against  even  the 
mother,  and  attacks  with  fury  any  intruder.  All 
this  is  what  we  call  instinct,  far  above  reason,  a 
sacrifice  and  care  which  no  science  can  explain. 


146      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

If  it  is  "creative  evolution"  it  has  needed  intelli- 
gence to  guide  the  evolution. 

Passing  now  from  the  parental  instinct  to  that 
intuitional  clairvoyance  which  has  been  noted  in 
the  case  of  the  solitary  wasps,  we  may  take  the 
case  of  the  Philanthus  apivorus,  which  has  the 
same  power.  It  feeds  on  bees  and  its  story  is 
told  by  Fabre.  It  meets  the  unsuspecting  bee, 
perhaps  on  a  flower.  With  its  weapon  it  stabs 
the  bee,  not  anywhere  it  may  happen,  but  at  one 
spot,  just  under  what  may  be  called  the  chin, 
just  where  the  head  ganglia  are,  and  the  blow 
instantly  paralyzes  the  bee,  so  that  it  can  make 
no  resistance  with  its  more  powerful  sting.  Then 
the  brigand  holds  the  bee  for  a  minute  or  two,  as 
if  to  make  sure  that  the  blow  was  effective,  and 
then  crushes  the  bee  and  forces  out  of  it  the 
honey  it  had  swallowed,  and  makes  its  meal  from 
it.  This  is  not  reason,  it  is  instinct;  but  could 
that  instinct  have  been  reached  by  a  slow  process 
of  reason  and  experience,  after  millions  of  trials 
by  millions  of  bee-hunters  which  had  struck  their 
victims  wherever  it  might  happen,  and  had  finally 
learned  to  choose  the  right  spot  for  the  deadly 
blow  ?  It  does  not  seem  reasonable.  That  knowl- 
edge goes  beyond  the  directive  agency  of  chance. 

One  or  two  further  illustrations  of  almost  in- 
credible instinct  I  take  from  Professor  J.  Arthur 
Thompson.  The  liver-fluke  consists  of  only  a 
few  cells  altogether.     It  has  no  nervous  system. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  INSTINCT      147 

*  *  It  is  covered  with  cilia,  and  has  energy  enough  to 
swim  about  for  a  day  or  two  in  the  water  pools 
of  the  pasturage.  It  comes  in  contact  with  many 
things,  but  it  responds  to  none  imtil  haply  it 
touches  the  little  fresh-water  snail,  the  only  con- 
tact that  will  enable  it  to  continue  its  life."  Here 
it  enters  the  breathing  aperture  and  goes  through 
various  modifications  and  multiplications  until  it 
is  taken  up  by  a  sheep  and  completes  its  metamor- 
phoses. The  response  to  the  one  stimulus  of  this 
very  simple  organism  cannot  be  explained  mechan- 
ically nor  easily  by  evolution.  It  appears  to  have 
been  bestowed  on  the  liver-fluke. 

Another  case  is  that  of  the  fresh-water  mussel. 
She  carries  her  young  in  her  outer  gill  plate,  and 
does  not  set  them  free  unless  there  is  a  stickleback 
or  the  like  in  the  immediate  vicinity.  ''Then  she 
liberates  a  crowd  of  pinhead-like  larval  mussels 
who  rush  out  into  the  water  like  boys  from  the 
open  school  door."  ''They  are  aware  of  the 
stickleback;  they  fasten  on  it  to  begin  another 
chapter  of  their  life."  This  is  instinct  somehow 
imposed  on  the  mother  mussel  and  her  infant 
brood.  How  came  they  to  possess  it  ?  The  best 
explanation  I  can  find  is  that  a  supreme  intelli- 
gence gave  this  instinct  where  reason  could  find 
no  place  to  abide. 

Yet  one  final  illustration  must  be  added,  which 
I  take  from  Bergson,  following  Fabre.  There  is  a 
little  beetle  called  the  Sitaris.     It  chooses  to  lay 


148      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

its  eggs  on  the  underground  passages  of  a  certain 
sort  of  bee.  But  why  does  it  seek  that  of  all 
places  ?  It  is  a  long  and  intricate  story,  far  be- 
yond the  powers  of  the  accidental  strivings  of 
evolution.  The  young  larva  hatched  from  the 
beetle's  egg  springs  upon  the  male  bee  as  it 
emerges  from  the  passage,  clings  to  him,  is  car- 
ried on  his  nuptial  flight,  when  it  passes  to  the 
female  bee,  and  remains  attached  to  her  until  she 
lays  her  eggs  in  the  honey.  It  then  leaps  on  an 
egg  floating  on  the  honey,  devours  it  and  devel- 
ops, rests  on  the  shell,  and  undergoes  its  first 
metamorphosis.  Now  it  eats  the  honey  which 
had  been  prepared  for  the  grub  of  the  bee,  and 
develops  into  the  perfect  beetle.  I  fail  to  make 
it  seem  possible  that  such  a  complex  of  apparent 
purpose,  which  seems  to  surpass  reason,  which 
amazes  the  biologist,  could  have  come  to  be  be- 
cause one  Sitaris  out  of  a  million  happened  in  an 
accident  of  nature  to  have  laid  its  egg  in  the 
tunnel  of  a  certain  bee,  and  the  worm  when 
hatched  happened  to  jump  on  the  male  bee  as  it 
came  out,  and  then  happened  to  jump  on  the 
female  bee,  and  then  happened  to  light  on  the 
bee's  egg  floating  on  the  honey,  and  that  this 
happened  often  enough  in  its  posterity  until  a 
sort  of  memory  of  this  success  was  inherited  in  all 
the  worms  of  the  species.  Am  I  told  that  this 
was  not  all  achieved  in  one  generation,  or  all  at 
once  ?    Then  I  ask.  What  was  the  use  of  inherit- 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT      149 

ing  any  of  it  until  the  whole  was  combined  in 
one  achievement;  and  what  likelihood  that  the 
second  generation  would  inherit  any  of  it  ?  Here 
is  a  purpose  which  to  my  mind  is  more  easily  ex- 
plained theistically.  Bergson  refuses  to  explain 
it  on  Darwinian  principles,  and  is  driven  to  the 
extraordinary  assumption  that  in  a  sort  of  mysti- 
cism the  invading  insect  has  a  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  the  insect  it  has  invaded.  That  means 
that  one  insect  has  an  intuition  of  the  habits  and 
intentions  of  another  species ;  that  an  insect  which 
has  but  a  feeble  consciousness  of  itself  has  an  as- 
tounding consciousness  of  the  mental  workings  and, 
as  we  see  in  the  case  of  the  wasps,  even  of  the 
finest  anatomy  of  other  sorts  of  insects.  The  ex- 
planation is  more  amazing  than  the  facts  observed. 
To  me  it  is  more  difficult  to  refer  such  mysterious 
inteUigence  to  the  insects  than  to  God. 

I  do  not  in  this  discussion  deny  evolution,  for 
to  my  mind  it  is  proved  beyond  question.  But 
in  evolution  I  see  what  biologists  can  see,  and  all 
they  can  see,  the  orderly  progress  of  higher  and 
higher  forms  of  life,  and  of  new  accessions  of  in- 
stinct and  reason.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  ex- 
planation of  the  causes  of  such  progression  we 
must  consult  philosophy,  and  the  philosophy  which 
thinks  it  discovers  intelligent  guidance  of  evolu- 
tion cannot  be  peremptorily  excluded.  Darwin's 
philosophy  rested  on  ''gemmules,"  though  without 
denying   guidance,    and   others   have   put    "bio- 


ISO      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

phors"  and  determinants,  as  many  as  may  be 
needed,  in  the  compass  of  the  blastomere  of  the 
ovum  and  sperm.  But  this  does  not  make  it 
clear  how  ancestral  knowledge,  memory,  instinct 
are  transmitted  to  the  successive  generations  of 
birds  and  fishes  and  insects.  It  is  one  thing,  and 
a  comparatively  easy  thing,  difficult  though  it  is, 
to  conceive  of  the  physical  elements  of  a  bird's 
or  animal's  body  concentrated  as  gemmules  in 
the  spermatic  or  ovarian  cell  to  develop  into  the 
body,  for  they  are  physical.  But  the  memory, 
the  pregenital  habit,  the  parental  foresight,  the 
wasp's  surgical  skill,  the  neuter  bee's  architecture 
— can  we  suppose  that  these  can  be  broken  up 
and  transmitted  by  "determinants"  and  ''bio- 
phors?"  Or  is  it  conceivable  that  Darwinian 
''gemmules"  in  the  chromatin  of  the  egg  can 
carry  a  habit,  an  ancestral  memory,  which  has 
been  conceived  of  not  as  inhering  in  and  dependent 
on  cells,  but  as  immaterial  activities  ?  To  me  it 
appears  quite  legitimate  and  very  reasonable  to 
seek  outside  of  the  aimless  and  casual  movements 
of  physical  and  vital  forces  for  the  intelligent 
guidance  of  some  superior  power.  When  we  con- 
sider the  realm  of  mentality,  of  instinct,  and  reason^ 
we  may  recur  to  the  im.t aught  wisdom  of  the  Man 
of  Uz  and  say  with  him . 

"Ask  now  the  beasts  and  they  shall  teach  thee; 
And  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  they  shall  tell  thee; 
Or  speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee; 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   INSTINCT      151 

And  the  fishes  of  the  sea  shall  declare  unto  thee: 
Who  knoweth  not  in  all  these 
That  the  hand  of  the  Lord  hath  wrought  this? 
In  whose  hand  is  the  soul  of  every  living  thing, 
And  the  breath  of  all  mankind." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF   GOD 

THE  evidences  for  God  drawn  from  nature, 
from  matter,  life,  and  mind,  the  things 
visible  to  us  and  experienced  by  us,  are 
those  that  appealed  to  the  author  of  the  biblical 
poem  which  summoned  all  the  forces  of  nature, 
the  lightning  and  the  cloud,  Orion  and  the  Plei- 
ades, the  horse  that  snuffeth  the  battle  afar  off. 
Behemoth  and  Leviathan,  to  testify  of  God,  and 
who  asked:  "Who  knoweth  not  in  all  these  that 
the  hand  of  the  Lord  has  wrought  this  ?"  It  was 
to  this  argument  that  Paul  looked  when  he  said: 
*'The  invisible  things  of  him  since  the  creation  of 
the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  perceived  through 
the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  everlasting 
power  and  divinity."  These  are  the  arguments 
which  have  convinced  the  world,  and  on  which  I 
would  chiefly  depend.  They  are  based  on  the 
presumption  that  if,  as  has  usually  been  believed, 
God  made  the  universe,  marks  of  his  handiwork 
will  be  visible.  They  do  not  command  utter  con- 
viction as  does  a  mathematical  demonstration 
nor  as  would  a  direct  vision  of  God,  such  as  we 
are  told  was  granted  to  Moses.     But  there  have 

152 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF   GOD     153 

been,  and  still  are,  not  a  few  who  do  not  need  and 
may  properly  disdain  arguments  and  proofs  for 
the  existence  of  God  because  they  have,  they 
believe,  seen  him  in  their  souls  as  truly  as  Moses 
saw  him  on  the  mount. 

But  does  it  follow  because  one  does  not  possess 
the  power  to  recognize  the  consciousness  of  God, 
that  he  cannot  have  any  comfort  in  prayer,  nor 
any  assurance  that  God  is  present  with  him  to 
hear  and  answer  ?  Certainly  he  can.  Faith  is 
not  sight,  but  it  is  the  assurance  of  things  hoped 
for,  the  proving  of  things  not  seen.  One  can  be- 
lieve in  an  invisible  God,  in  his  presence,  in  the 
influence  of  his  Spirit,  in  guidance  and  inspiration. 
That  is  the  lesson  of  the  whole  eleventh  chapter  of 
Hebrews.  Such  faith  can  give  peace  and  even 
joy  in  him  "whom  not  having  seen  we  love;  in 
whom,  though  now  we  see  him  not,  yet  believing 
we  rejoice  greatly  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full 
of  glory:  receiving  the  end  of  our  faith,  even  the 
salvation  of  oiu:  souls." 

If  direct  vision  were  generally  given,  no  other 
evidence  would  be  needed.  But  it  is  given  to 
comparatively  few  of  us.  I  have  never  had  it, 
and  in  my  younger  days  I  used  to  seek  and  pray 
for  it.  It  did  not  come,  and  I  gave  up  the  effort, 
believing  that  if  God  wanted  me  to  have  it  he 
was  good  enough  to  give  it  without  my  straining 
further  in  prayer  for  it.  But  others  say  they 
have  it,  and  if  their  testimony  is  to  be  accepted 


154      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

that  ends  the  matter.  But  that  needs  considera- 
tion, for  there  are  chances  of  error.  Meanwhile 
we  hear  the  common  petition  in  the  pulpit  and 
prayer-meeting  that  we  may  be  conscious  of  the 
presence  of  God  in  our  hearts.  I  never  make  that 
prayer. 

What  is  it  to  be  conscious  of  the  presence  of 
God  ?  It  is  not  to  have  faith  in  God,  to  believe 
he  is  present  with  us  by  his  Spirit  in  our  souls 
helping  our  infirmities  and  answering  our  prayers. 
Faith  is  not  sight.  But  consciousness  of  God  is 
to  feel  in  the  soul  such  a  touch  of  his  action  on 
the  soul  that  one  will  know  that  it  is  not  the  work- 
ing of  his  own  imagination,  but  an  external  ap- 
pulse,  as  surely  external  as  when  we  know  that 
a  friend  is  seen  or  heard.  It  is  something  more 
and  other  than  feeling  happy  or  exalted.  It  is  the 
soul  hearing  the  voice  which  we  know  is  not  our 
voice  but  God's  voice. 

I  do  not  think  this  is  a  very  common  experience, 
not  nearly  so  common  as  is  a  peaceful  reliance, 
trust,  in  the  goodness  of  God.  When  it  is  found 
it  is  evidential ;  but  is  it  really  found  ? 

The  seeking  and  finding  of  such  spiritual  ex- 
periences is  what  is  called  mysticism,  and  theology 
has  made  much  of  them  of  late.  In  past  times 
it  has  taken  the  form,  very  much,  of  the  effort 
to  identify  oneself  with,  to  sink  oneself  in,  the 
infinity  of  God.  This  is  not  an  active  but  a  pas- 
sive  form  of  religion,  and  has  had  its  widest 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF   GOD     155 

vogue  in  the  Hindu  Yoga,  in  which  absorption  in 
God  induces  indifference  to  the  world  and  ascet- 
icism. The  more  usual  form  of  mysticism  is  that 
which  is  less  tending  to  Pantheism,  and  seeks  to 
know  God  as  one  knows  his  neighbor,  by  recog- 
nizing God  in  his  assured  presence  in  the  soul. 

While  such  a  consciousness  of  God  is  evidence 
enough  of  God  to  him  w^ho  believes  he  has  it,  it 
can  be  no  evidence  to  one  who  does  not  feel  it, 
and  who  thinks  the  subject  of  it  is  mistaken  and 
has  simply  imagined  that  a  response  had  come 
from  God  to  his  desires.  In  dreams  and  in  in- 
sanity alike  one  imagines  what  is  not  true,  and 
there  is  with  many  an  imaginative  soul  a  stage 
midway  between  the  two.  We  have  had  multi- 
tudes of  cases  in  revivals  of  those  who,  after  much 
excitement,  have  sought  and  found,  they  believed, 
the  positive,  recognized  voice  of  God  forgiving 
their  sins,  and  they  have  fallen  to  the  ground  in 
an  ecstasy  of  joy.  Just  as  much  the  American 
Indian  goes  into  the  forest  and  fasts  for  days  and 
nights  till  he  has  his  response  from  the  Great 
Spirit.  Indeed,  such  experiences  are  most  fre- 
quent with  those,  whether  ignorant  or  cultivated, 
who  have  less  of  the  rationalizing  natiu*e  and  more 
of  the  imaginative  temperament.  I  am  very  sus- 
picious of  such  supposed  experiences.  I  am  my- 
self a  complete  rationalist  in  my  religious  faith, 
and  desire  to  believe  nothing  that  I  do  not  under- 
stand and  find  a  good  reason  for.     One  of  my 


156      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

valued  friends  was  a  clergyman  who  in  his  old 
age  developed  the  power  of  recognizing  the  re- 
sponse from  God,  and  equally  from  his  deceased 
wife,  with  whom  he  talked  freely  at  night  and 
whom  he  consulted  on  various  personal  matters. 
He  had  no  doubt  of  her  presence.  I  doubted; 
and  equally  I  doubt  in  the  cases  of  those  who 
have  this  easily  responsive,  mystical  nature.  I 
do  not  envy  their  facile  assurance ;  I  would  rather 
trust  cold,  suspicious  reason. 

I  suppose  religious  mysticism  is  closely  allied 
to  a  philosophical  idealism  which  reduces  even 
reality  to  thought.  The  world  is  God's  thought; 
he  thought  it  into  existence.  All  we  know  is  our 
thinking.  We  can  think  ourselves  apart  from 
anything  material  and  into  God.  So  in  a  new 
sense  the  world  passes  away  and  the  fashion 
thereof.  Hence  the  so-called  New  Thought,  the 
Christian  Science,  Hindu  swamis,  and  any  re- 
ligious philosophy  which  can  think  suffering  and 
sickness  out  of  reality,  and  God  in  us  and  us  in 
God. 

The  assurance  of  the  existence  of  God  which 
comes  out  of  first  assuming  God,  and  then  by 
vigorous  willing  convincing  oneself  that  one  has 
a  conscious  experience  of  God,  appears  to  me  an 
abuse  of  reason  and  a  fallacy,  and  may  be  danger- 
ous. By  its  claim  to  an  immediacy  of  vision,  its 
union  of  the  soul  with  the  Source  of  all  being,  it 
creates  a  superior  class,  a  religious  aristocracy, 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF   GOD     157 

above  the  rest  of  us  who  can  reach  no  higher  than 
loving  submission  and  obedience  to  the  heavenly 
Father,  and  with  it  have  often  come  strange  de- 
lusions to  believe  a  lie. 

Closely  allied  to  this  mysticism,  if  not  identical 
with  it  under  a  different  name,  is  the  teaching  of 
the  immanence  of  God,  with  its  certain  assurance, 
direct  and  unmistakable,  of  the  existence  of  God. 
Yet  under  the  teaching  of  immanence  God  is 
assumed  as  the  substratum  of  all  that  is,  the  sup- 
porter and  active  agent  in  all  nature,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  soul  of  man,  so  that  in  him  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being  in  a  very  literal 
sense.  I  have  heard  intelligent  people  use  its  lan- 
guage and  defend  it  when  all  they  really  meant 
by  immanence  was  the  old  doctrine  of  the  divine 
omnipresence  and  providence.  Yet  one  can  per- 
suade himself  in  using  its  language  to  believe  that 
he  has  reached  a  real  personal  touch  of  his  spirit 
with  God.  To  me  all  this  has  no  evidential  value, 
and  it  is  mainly,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  an  assump- 
tion rather  than  an  experience. 

I  can  see  that  the  assumption  of  the  imma- 
nence of  God  in  oneself  and  in  nature  may  give 
comfort  to  certain  souls  who  are  ready  to  believe 
that  they  are  a  fragment  of  God,  like  a  little 
island  peak  rising  out  of  a  vast,  invisible,  sub- 
marine mountain  range.  In  such  presumed  im- 
manence, or  idealistic  monism,  or  whatever  it 
may  be  called,  there  may  such  a  relation  with 


158      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

God  be  assumed  or  imagined  that  the  individual 
may  seem  to  recognize  somehow  that  larger  some- 
thing of  which  he  is  a  part.  It  is  beautiful  thus 
to  discover  oneself  to  be  a  little  uprush  or  out- 
burst of  God.  But  what  of  the  criminal  man  ? 
It  seems  profane — it  is  nothing  less  than  profane 
to  think  of  a  criminal  as  a  small  disfigurement  ap- 
pearing on  the  visage  of  God.  But  what  else 
is  he  ? 

There  are  many  who  would  say  that  conscious- 
ness of  God  is  the  strongest  proof  of  God.  Then 
the  great  multitude  who  have  no  such  conscious- 
ness can  have  no  such  proof.  Consciousness 
would  be  for  the  individual  the  final,  conclusive 
proof.  I  never  could  cheat  myself  into  feeling 
it.  We  must  remember  what  such  consciousness 
is.  It  is  the  recognition  that  you  apprehend,  feel, 
grasp  God  as  something  which  you  are  sure  is 
not  yourself,  which  touches  you  from  the  outside; 
just  as  when  a  person  touches  you  you  recognize 
his  touch  as  something  exterior  to  yourself,  or 
when  you  hear  your  friend's  voice  you  instantly 
recognize  its  otherness;  you  did  not  make  that 
sound,  it  came  to  you  from  the  outside.  Now  I 
have  never  felt  clear  that  I  could  recognize  an 
exterior  stroke  impinging  on  my  mind  which  I  in- 
stantly perceived  was  not  of  my  own  mind's  origi- 
nation. That  is  what  I  mean  by  saying  that  I 
have  never  been  conscious  of  God,  and  the  great 
multitude  of  common  people  have  never  had  this 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF  GOD     159 

proof  of  God,  and  are  as  incapable  of  having  it  as 
I  am.  It  is  the  supposed  possession  of  those  only 
who  either  blunder  in  terms,  or  who  simply  re- 
peat a  formula  of  words  without  knowing  their 
meaning,  or  who  identify  their  own  mental  proc- 
esses with  the  voice  of  God,  or  who  are  a  genuine 
sort  of  mystics  that  have  a  mentality  and  a  reach 
into  the  infinite  above  and  about  them  which  is 
special  to  them  and  beyond  the  reach  of  the  com- 
mon mortal  of  this  generation  of  objective  reality 
and  rational  common  sense.  Theirs  is  instinct 
rather  than  reason. 

So  I  have  no  interest  in  the  argument  of  con- 
sciousness, consciousness  of  a  perception,  which 
is  itself  the  direct  apprehension,  grasping,  laying 
hold  of  God,  and  which  needs  no  other  argument. 
That  the  world  begs  for  argument  of  God  is  evi- 
dence that  the  world  has  no  consciousness  of 
God.  I  would  not  say  it  is  impossible  that  any 
one  should  have  immediate  and  real  conscious- 
ness of  God.  There  may  be  rare  souls  which 
have  transcendental  and  transcendent  power. 
Yet  I  doubt  if  they  really  have  a  gift  not  given  to 
others.  I  know  that  imagination  plays  strange 
tricks.  In  some  perfectly  sane  children  imagina- 
tion is  next  to  reality.  And  there  are  imaginative 
people  who  see  visions  and  have  experiences  which 
are  purely  subjective,  but  which  to  them  seem 
objective.  I  shrink  from  much  of  the  stock 
phrases  in  religious  conferences  and  prayer-meet- 


i6o      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

ings  about  our  communion  with  God,  practising 
the  God-habit,  the  consciousness  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence, which  would  be  dangerous  and  fanatical, 
if  it  were  not  to  be  reduced,  and  practically  is 
reduced,  to  its  lowest  terms  of  simple  faith  and 
love. 

Closely  related  to  these  doctrines  of  mysticism, 
though  not  itself  mystical  in  spiritual  experience, 
is  the  teaching  of  some  that  the  idea  of  God  is  one 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  thought.  They 
simply  assume  God  as  something  bound  up  in  the 
mind  itself,  so  that  whenever  one  thinks,  he  thinks 
with  God  in  the  background.  If  so,  we  need 
nothing  further,  but  so  far  as  I  know  it  is  not  so 
with  me,  and  the  testimony  of  others  will,  I  think, 
agree  with  mine.  Nor  do  I  see  that  the  mind  is 
so  constituted  that  men  must  necessarily  think 
on  the  basis  of  God,  as  they  think  on  the  basis  of 
the  axioms  of  geometry.  Indeed,  some  people 
do  not  believe  in  God. 

Nor  will  I  burden  myself  with  trying  to  under- 
stand what  is  meant  by  absolute  being,  and  as- 
serting the  necessity  of  absolute  being,  and  de- 
claring that  absolute  being  is  God.  If  absolute 
being  means  nothing  more  than  being  which  ex- 
ists of  its  own  necessity  of  being,  the  term  is  a 
needless  mystification  of  thought.  That  there  is 
being  that  exists  by  its  own  necessity  of  being  I 
believe ;  but  I  believe  it  because  I  know  of  finite, 
dependent,  contingent  existences,  and  there  must 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF   GOD     i6i 

be  back  of  all  something  which  is  not  dependent, 
on  which  they  depend.  But  this  has  been  con- 
sidered in  previous  chapters. 

Another  form  of  this  argument  is  the  claim  that 
the  mind  possesses  an  inherent  sense  of  truth, 
goodness,  and  beauty,  and  that  there  must  be  a 
perfect  objective  standard  of  truth,  goodness,  and 
beauty  by  which  they  are  measured,  as  length  is 
measured  by  a  yardstick.  These  ideas  certainly 
are  inherent  in  the  soul,  but  why  that  should  in- 
volve the  objective  existence  of  a  Being  who  is 
the  standard  of  perfection  in  these  attributes  I 
fail  to  see.  I  imagine  a  perfect  or  an  imperfect 
being,  but  one  fancy  no  more  than  the  other  as- 
sures its  existence  in  reality.  The  argument  is 
too  much  like  those  for  the  Platonic  ideas  that 
exist  realized  in  heaven,  the  substantive  generic 
patterns  of  the  things  on  the  earth,  or  such  as 
the  Lord  showed  to  Moses  on  the  mount,  copying 
which  he  was  to  build  the  Tabernacle. 

Neither  am  I  convinced  by  the  moral  argu- 
ment, which  asserts  that  there  must  be  a  great 
Being  who  in  another  world  will  correct  all  the 
inequalities  and  injustices  of  this  present  life; 
that  the  righteous  man  who  has  been  buffeted  all 
his  life  here  will  find,  must  find,  that  a  great  and 
infinite  Ruler  and  Judge  will  by  and  by  straighten 
all  this  out,  that  only  thus  can  final  justice  be 
reached.  So  I  beHeve  and  hope;  but  I  fail  to 
see  why,  in  the  nature  of  things,  final  equal  jus- 


1 62      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

tice  must  be  victor.  Of  course,  after  we  have 
reached  the  conclusion  that  there  is  a  God  we 
will  then  say  that  he  will  righten  there  the  wrongs 
here;  but  before  we  have  found  a  God  to  exist 
I  do  not  see  why  it  is  necessary  to  assume  that 
the  present  sufferings  and  defeats  of  the  righteous, 
these  miserable,  often  horrible  inequalities  and 
injustices  here,  must  find  a  future  Vindicator; 
any  more  than  I  can  see  why  the  inferior  man, 
given  the  handicap  of  a  low  mentality,  imable  to 
be  a  Bacon,  a  Newton  or  a  Shakespeare,  should 
and  must  perforce  in  another  world  be  given  in 
justice  an  intellectual  equality  with  the  favored 
geniuses  of  this  life. 

The  arguments  for  theism  considered  in  this 
chapter  appear  to  me  to  rest  mainly  on  the  wish 
to  believe.  But  the  fact  that  we  wish  to  believe 
in  God,  or  immortality,  or  anything  else,  is  no 
weighty  evidence  or  none  at  all,  in  favor  of  such 
belief.  It  is  of  that  fallacious  pragmatic  sort 
which  holds  that  a  belief  is  proved  true  by  prov- 
ing that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  have  it  proved 
true.  Science  ever  "refuses  to  regard  our  own 
desires,  tastes,  or  interests  as  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  world." 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  writing  this  chapter 
caused  by  any  fear  of  disturbing  the  faith  of  those 
who  have  been  pleased  to  repeat  the  arguments 
which  to  me  seem  of  little  or  no  validity.  They 
already  believe,  and  nothing  can  disturb  their 


THE   DIRECT  VISION   OF  GOD     163 

faith.  They  ask  no  reasons;  their  power  to  need 
or  ask  questions  was  long  ago  aborted.  They  re- 
joice in  their  inability  to  question.  They  are 
glad  hearts  without  reserve  or  doubt,  who,  to 
change  a  word  of  an  earlier  mystic,  may  be  de- 
scribed in  his  language:  ''Jam  non  consilio  cre- 
dens,  sed  more  eo  perductus  ut  non  tantum  credere 
possim,  sed  nisi  credere  non  possim." 

"  No  proofs  henceforth  I  seek  for  my  belief; 
For  to  such  mind  God's  grace  has  lifted  me 
That  I  not  only  can  believe,  but  now 
Not  to  believe  is  quite  impossible." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

HOW  TO  THINK  OF  GOD 

IT  is  impossible  by  any  arguments  absolutely 
to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God.  Some 
may  doubt.  Those  only  who  believe  they 
have  in  their  souls  a  consciousness  of  God  can 
therein  find  the  demonstration  which  the  rest  of 
us  must  lack.  It  is  the  privilege  of  the  few,  and 
it  is  not  easy  to  convince  others  that  this  con- 
scious apprehension  of  God  as  something  other 
than  themselves  is  not,  or  at  least  may  not  be, 
the  product  of  a  longing  which  finally  creates 
within  the  mind  the  apparent  fulfilment  of  its 
own  desire.  To  be  sure,  we  also  have  in  our  own 
sacred  books,  and  in  the  sacred  books  of  all  re- 
ligions, accoimts  of  the  intervention  of  God,  or 
the  gods,  in  a  way  that  would  be  conclusive  of 
the  divine  existence;  but  no  such  interventions 
appear  now,  and  questions  inevitably  arise  as  to 
the  trustworthiness  of  such  accounts.  Miracles 
have  ceased  to  be  a  convincing  proof  of  God; 
they  need  proof ;  and  we  are  and  must  be  satisfied 
to  depend  for  our  faith  in  the  existence  of  God 
on  those  proofs  which  we  have  considered,  and 
on  such  as  have  satisfied  the  searchers  after  God. 

164 


HOW  TO  THINK  OF  GOD  165 

The  common  consent  of  mankind  gives  us  the 
belief  that  there  are  one  or  more  non-material 
superior  existences,  spiritual  in  their  nature,  which 
have  power  over  material  forces  and  over  man- 
kind. Those  existences,  called  gods,  or  God,  have 
knowledge  of  us,  and  can  be  appealed  to,  placated 
or  provoked,  and  can  do  us  good  or  harm.  They 
may  have  passions,  as  do  we,  good  or  bad,  or  the 
one  God  may  be  infinitely  and  changelessly  wise, 
powerful,  and  good.  Mankind  conceives  of  its 
deities  or  Deity  as  like  itself,  only  far  superior,  its 
highest  ideal  of  what  is  noble  and  worthy,  or  even 
as  the  spiritual  impersonation  of  its  evil  passions. 
As  humanity  grows  in  ethical  sense  out  of  savagery 
its  gods  gain  quality  until  we  reach  the  concep- 
tion of  a  single  God,  with  no  rival  or  competitor, 
infinitely  wise  and  powerful,  but  also  infinitely 
good.  To  him  is  ascribed  the  creation  and  the 
rule  of  the  universe.  In  a  sense  it  is  true  that 
man  creates  his  God.  His  idea  of  God  is  of  his 
own  conception,  and  it  grows  in  spirituality  and 
moral  quality  with  his  own  spiritual  and  moral 
growth. 

Christendom  possesses  this  highest  conception 
of  God,  first  reached  by  Judaism.  But  we  have 
not  seen  God  walking  in  our  gardens.  We  have 
no  such  physical  evidence  of  him  as  we  have  of 
each  other,  and  it  is  impossible  that  we,  or  at 
least  most  of  us,  should  have.  We  must  be  con- 
tent, as  in  so  many  of  our  beliefs,  with  evidence 


1 66      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

of  the  probable  sort.  But  that  probabiHty  may 
be  enough  to  depend  upon,  enough  for  practical 
purposes;  and  such  appears  to  me  the  evidence 
in  support  of  God's  existence  drawn  from  the  uni- 
verse of  nature.  To  me  it  seems  clear  that  there 
must  have  been  a  great  First  Cause,  that  the 
world  of  matter  did  not  create  itself,  but  had  a 
creator,  and  equally  that  its  co-ordinated  laws 
had  a  contriver.  Equally,  the  evidence  presented 
in  earlier  chapters  makes  me  believe  that  the  world 
of  life  and  the  world  of  mind  were  guided  by  a 
superior  intelligence  rather  than  that  they  hap- 
pened to  develop  without  intelligence  or  guidance. 

If  in  this  conclusion  I  am  right,  I  must  have 
already  learned  from  his  works  what  is  the  nature 
and  what  the  qualities,  attributes,  of  God.  What 
are  his  attributes  ? 

I  do  not  see  that  this  question  need  raise  any 
great  difficulty.  We  need  not  flounder  about  in 
self-made  mazes  wondering  about  the  absolute, 
or  refuse  to  cross  in  thought  an  unbridged  gulf 
between  our  finite  and  his  infinite.  Why  create 
the  gulf?  We  have  bodies  and  souls;  we  know 
matter  and  mind,  not  relationless  and  absolute, 
but  related  to  time  and  space.  We  know  nothing 
else;  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  there  is  any- 
thing else.  ''Vain  wisdom  all  and  false  phi- 
losophy." If  our  minds  cannot  comprehend  the 
infinite  they  can  at  least  apprehend  it,  and  can 
understand  that  it  is  like  what  we  know  outside 


HOW  TO  THINK  OF   GOD  167 

of  us,  and  are  conscious  of  within  ourselves,  only 
more  of  it.  We  can  know  something  of  what 
God  is,  and  be  positive  of  it. 

And,  first,  all  power  is  embraced  in  the  first 
Great  Cause.  The  whole  coiu-se  and  force  of 
nature  came  out  from  him.  To  be  sure,  we  have 
not  been  able  to  find  any  evidence  in  the  ether  of 
space  that  it  is  not  coterminal  and  cotemporal 
with  time  and  space,  boundless  and  eternal  as 
God;  but  we  have  also  found  that  it  has  been 
subject  to  an  exterior  power  which  out  of  this 
ether  has  created  all  things.  Ether  was  the  form- 
less and  the  void,  the  darkness  upon  the  face  of 
the  deep,  out  of  which  God  made  light  and  the 
heaven  and  the  earth.  He  that  made  all  things 
is  God.  This  is  what  we  call  omnipotence,  for 
he  that  can  do  all  this  can  do  all  things.  This 
does  not  imply  that  he  can  do  what  in  the  nature 
of  things  it  is  impossible  to  do.  Thus  can  God 
now  cause  that  Woodrow  Wilson,  who  was  inaugu- 
rated President  on  March  4th,  shall  have  been 
inaugurated  on  March  3d  ?  Can  God  cause  that 
March  4th  shall  have  come  before  March  3d  ? 
Or  that  March  4th  should  be  skipped,  and  there 
be  no  March  4th  ?     Can  he  abolish  time  ? 

Equally  the  Intelligence  which  knew  how  to 
contrive  the  numberless  multiformities  of  nebulae 
and  stars  and  solar  systems,  and  equally  the  laws 
and  forces  of  their  constituent  atoms ;  and,  further, 
the  vital  powers  which  create  plants  and  animals. 


1 68      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

and  could  distribute  intelligence  and  instinct  to 
bee  or  man  as  needed,  all  appearing  in  due  course 
under  a  system  of  law  and  a  plan  of  development 
— that  Intelligence  must  be  without  limit.  It 
must  cover  all  that  can  be  known.  It  may  not 
cover  anything  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
cannot  be  known,  if  such  a  thing  there  be;  just 
as  the  divine  omnipotence  cannot  do  what  is  in 
essence  impossible,  as  to  make  the  three  angles 
of  a  plane  triangle  equal  to  more  than  two  right 
angles.  Whether  God,  after  giving  freedom  to  a 
creature,  can  foresee  what  his  every  choice  will 
be  I  am  not  sure.  Nor  is  it  important  to  decide 
that  he  can,  for  his  wisdom  is  enough  to  meet  any 
imaginable  emergency ;  or  he  may  choose  to  leave 
all  things  without  interference  to  the  operation  of 
his  wise  laws  and  the  free  choices  of  his  creatures. 
All  that  can  be  known  he  does  know.  This  we 
call  omniscience. 

Another  even  more  important  quality  or  attri- 
bute assigned  to  the  infinite  power  and  intelli- 
gence whom  we  call  God  is  goodness.  Yet  there 
are  those,  like  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  have  found 
in  nature  the  evidences  of  a  God  of  might  and 
wisdom,  but  who  could  not,  seeing  the  sin  and 
suffering  in  his  world,  be  assured  of  his  stainless 
goodness.  The  assumed  problem  of  a  good  God 
and  a  world  of  evil  does  not  seem  to  me  to  need 
solving.  That  God  is  good  is,  I  think,  involved 
in  his  infinite  wisdom.     God  would  not  be  wise 


HOW  TO  THINK  OF   GOD  169 

if  he  were  not  good.  I  do  not  need  to  argue  this 
to  myself;  nor  am  I  affected  by  the  fact  that  for 
us  prudence  and  goodness  seem  sometimes  to 
conflict,  that  to  do  right  sometimes  causes  suffer- 
ing and  wrong.  But  the  elements  of  our  little 
arc  are  insufficient  to  compute  and  describe  his 
infinite  circle.  Our  temporary  loss  may  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  a  larger  gain.  The  hermit  thrush 
may  be  killed  by  the  hawk,  but  it  had  a  busy, 
blissful  life  of  sweet  song,  and  it  was  best  that 
thrush  and  lark  and  hawk  and  deer  and  wolf  and 
man  should  die  and  make  room  for  others  of  their 
kind;  and  the  sum  of  their  happiness  was  good. 
It  was  best  that  the  law  of  life  and  death  should 
rule,  without  exception  for  suffering's  sake.  The 
suffering  was  incidental;   it  was  good  to  live. 

"  For  who  would  lose, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
These  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity, 
To  perish  rather,  swallowed  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night?" 

It  is  the  drift  of  life  we  must  consider  when  we 
think  of  suffering,  not  its  eddies ;  the  whole  orbit, 
not  its  epicycles;  the  rule,  not  its  exceptions; 
and  the  prevailing  rule  and  drift  of  life  is  not 
suffering,  but  enjoyment,  so  that  life  is  sweet. 
The  chief  appeal  of  both  religion  and  ethics  is 
to  well  folks.  And  I  hold  that  moral  evil  is  not 
predominant.     Even  bad  people  are  likely  to  do 


I70      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

more  good  things  than  bad.  To  be  sure,  they 
do  many  bad  things;  much  sin  is  in  the  world, 
and  a  good  God  cannot  be  pleased  with  it;  but 
I  am  not  sure  that  he  can  help  it.  He  cannot 
make  a  thing  to  be  and  not  to  be  at  the  same 
time;  and  I  am  not  clear  that  he  can  make  men 
who  shall  be  free  and  yet  not  free  to  sin.  It 
would  hardly  be  worth  while  to  have  a  world  and 
yet  no  place  planned  in  it  for  free  moral  beings; 
not  worth  while  to  create  man,  and  not  let  him 
sin  as  he  chose.  That  is,  as  many  have  said 
before  me,  while  it  is  clear  that  God  might  have 
refused  to  create,  it  is  not  clear  that  if  he  created 
beings  with  moral  natures  and  possessed  of  free 
will,  he  could  have  excluded  sin.  And  equally  it 
is  not  clear  that  if  God  gave  rules  of  law  to  the 
world  of  matter  and  the  world  of  life,  a  reign  of 
law  that  we  can  depend  upon,  he  could  have  ex- 
cluded suffering.  The  sum  of  enjoyment,  and 
equally  the  sum  of  goodness,  may  be — I  doubt 
not  it  is  and  will  be — much  greater  than  the  by- 
products, the  remnants,  the  offal,  the  slag  and 
cinders  of  suffering  and  sin.  The  bad  is  sad, 
very  sad,  I  know,  but  the  good  in  fatherhood  and 
motherhood  and  childhood,  in  love  and  fellow- 
ship and  help,  in  health  and  useful  work,  is  much 
greater;  and  I  do  not  feel  the  need  to  solve 
studied  riddles  and  "justify  the  ways  of  God  to 
man."  I  find  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  God 
is  good  beyond  limit,  as  well  as  powerful  and  wise. 


HOW  TO   THINK   OF   GOD  171 

These  qualities  of  power,  wisdom,  and  good- 
ness belong  not  to  matter,  but  to  mind.  When  we 
then  formulate  our  belief  as  to  the  nature  of  God 
we  have  already  thought  of  him  as  a  spirit,  a  real 
personality  possessed  of  the  same  kind  of  mind 
as  is  ours,  with  intellect  to  know,  feeling  to  love, 
and  will  to  create.  God  is  a  spirit;  there  is  no 
question  of  that. 

But  can  he  be  more  than  a  spirit  ?  We  have 
both  spirit  and  body ;  can  God  have  both  ?  He 
is  not  matter  as  known  to  us,  and  in  his  activity 
he  transcends  and  embraces  all  matter.  Yet  one 
exception  to  this  statement  we  have  observed. 
So  far  as  we  can  judge,  his  infinity  does  not  tran- 
scend the  infinity  of  ether  in  space  and  time. 
Ether  appears  to  be  infinite  in  extent  and  infinite 
in  past  and  future  duration.  Then  it  is  conceiva- 
ble that  it  may  have  a  special  relation  to  the  in- 
finite spirit.  We  may  conceive  of  ether  as  the 
agency  through  which  God  works,  just  as  our 
souls  work  through  our  bodies ;  or  we  might  even, 
for  the  moment,  ask  whether  ether  can  of  itself 
be  spiritual  and  of  the  nature  of  God.  It  will 
not  be  easy  to  accept  the  latter  view  if  we  allow 
the  conclusion  of  most  physicists  at  present  that 
matter  in  its  ultimate  elements  is  simply  a  modi- 
fication of  ether.  All  the  present  studies  of  ether, 
with  its  various  waves  for  transmitting  force, 
tend  to  make  it  clear  that  its  alliance  is  not  with 
mind,   but   with   the   familiar   forms   of  matter. 


172      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

We  may,  to  be  sure,  possibly  think  of  ether  as 
having  special  relations  to  the  Supreme  Spirit, 
but  not  as  itself  the  Supreme  Spirit;  not,  as 
Haeckel  would  have  it,  that  ether  is  God.  God's 
nature,  shown  by  his  attributes,  is  plainly  that 
of  spirit. 

It  is  obviously  of  the  nature  of  God  as  a  self- 
existent  being  that  his  existence  should  be  infinite 
in  time.  The  necessity  of  his  existence  always 
has  been  and  always  will  be.  That  is,  he  is  the 
eternal  God. 

He  would  also  of  his  own  nature  be  universal 
in  his  being,  in  one  place  as  well  as  another,  cov- 
ering all  space.  We  know  very  little  as  to  the 
way  in  which  spirit  localizes  itself;  but  in  what- 
ever way,  in  whatever  sort  of  consciousness  or 
intelligence  it  acts,  no  place  is  exempt  from  the 
activity  of  a  necessarily  existent  spirit.  The 
necessity  of  his  existence  is  universal.  That  is 
what  we  call  the  divine  omnipresence. 

How,  then,  am  I  to  think  of  God  ?  I  think  of 
him  as  the  original  substratum  of  the  universe, 
the  self -existent,  co-eternal  of  eternity,  that  from 
which  all  came;  yet  not  as  an  abstract,  non-rela- 
tioned  essence,  but  as  a  real,  concrete  intelligence 
and  will,  that  stands  behind  all  material  things 
which  he  has  devised,  created,  and  rules.  How 
he  rules  them  we  may  not  know,  except  that  he 
does  it  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature. 
We  see  no  exception  to  those  laws,  and  to  every 


HOW  TO  THINK  OF  GOD  173 

appearance  nature  has  been  put  under  them  and 
automatically  obeys  them.  So  I  do  not  think  of 
God  as  the  constantly  active  volitional  agent  in 
every  smallest  and  largest  attraction  and  repul- 
sion of  nature,  but  as  author  of  its  laws  and  pre- 
siding over  them.  I  think  of  those  laws  as  secur- 
ing the  beneficence  of  the  seasons,  and  also  the 
paroxysms  of  tornado  and  earthquake,  and  I  do 
not  think  of  these  as  separate  and  individual 
choices  and  volitions  of  God. 

I  think  of  God  as  infinitely  good,  as  an  intensely 
moral  being,  loving  the  right  and  by  his  nature 
pledged  to  its  victory,  and  equally  hating  the 
wrong  and  pledged  to  its  defeat.  I  think  of  him 
as  faultlessly  and  redundantly  good,  actively  so 
whether  that  activity  is  exercised  by  the  process 
of  his  laws  or  by  his  supervision  over  them. 
Suffering  is  but  the  necessary  and  undesired  by- 
product of  his  wise  and  good  laws.  Only  sin  is 
the  alien  act  of  man's  hostile  free  will. 

Thus  I  think  of  God  as  a  spirit  eternal,  universal, 
pervasive,  and  active,  as  a  personal  being,  in  his 
power,  wisdom  and  goodness.  But  the  question 
must  still  arise  as  to  the  way  of  his  relation  to 
the  world  he  rules.  The  mind  constantly  recurs 
to  that  other  infinity  apparently  as  pervasive  as 
God,  as  eternal  as  God,  which  we  call  ether. 
What,  then,  is  its  relation  to  God  ? 

I  cannot  know,  but  when  I  think  of  ether  as 
the  probable  source  of  everything,  of  every  atom 


174      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

of  matter  in  the  universe,  of  earth  and  stars  as 
made  out  of  ether ;  and  of  every  sort  of  force,  not 
of  light  only,  but  of  electricity  and  gravity  as 
well,  as  depending  on  the  strain  of  ether;  the 
earth  carried  by  ether  about  the  sun,  as  well  as 
the  apple  drawn  to  the  ground;  of  every  physical 
or  chemical  or  vital  activity  resting  in  the  eternal 
force  of  ether;  of  ether  never  displaced  by  matter 
but  identified  with  it  as  the  air  is  identified  with 
its  eddies  or  the  ocean  with  its  waves,  it  seems  not 
unlikely  that  the  Infinite  Spirit  somehow  works 
in  and  through  ether  as  our  souls  act  through 
our  bodies.  Would  it  be  illegitimate  to  think  of 
ether  as  in  a  sense  the  body  of  God,  God  the  spirit, 
and  yet  at  the  same  time  the  universe  God  ?  I 
have  no  opinion.  I  do  not  believe  such  to  be  the 
fact,  nor  do  I  disbelieve  it,  for  I  have  no  evidence 
— it  is  a  mere  conjecture.  Yet  it  seems  some- 
what plausible.  At  least  we  know  that  God  does 
nothing  outside  of  ether  and  its  modifications. 
In  ether  he  is  omnipresent. 

The  conjecture  is  not  pantheistic.  It  would 
be  if  God  were  not  thought  of  as  also  a  controlling 
spirit,  as  with  us  the  mind  rules  the  body.  It  is 
— ^is  it  not  ? — a  fact  that  God  lives  and  works  in 
ether,  as  we  live  and  work  in  our  physical  bodies. 
It  would  thus  follow  that  other  spirits  and  our 
own  souls  may  yet  live  and  act  in  a  direct  sense 
in  God,  in  the  same  space,  the  same  ether,  the 
same  God  who  fills  all  things. 


HOW  TO  THINK   OF  GOD  175 

And  may  we  not  wonder,  and  perhaps  learn 
some 'day,  whether  the  ether  is  not  the  medium 
in  its  strain  by  which  our  spirit,  our  will,  acts  on 
our  physical  structure  ?  We  know  that  it  is 
through  strain  in  the  ether  that  physical  move- 
ments are  secured;  why  may  not  the  mind  act 
on  and  through  ether?  Are  we  quite  sure  that 
the  mind  is  not  itself  a  modification  of  ether  ? 
just  as  the  electron  is  ?  Thus  we  might  conceive 
of  the  beasts  as  having  an  ether  soul  to  be  com- 
pared with  the  low  combining  weight  of  hydrogen 
while  the  human  soul  is  complex,  like  an  organic 
molecule,  and  the  vital  soul  of  the  tree  is  inert, 
like  argon.  We  do  not  know,  but  at  least  the 
conjecture  is  plausible  that,  as  the  ether  is  only 
semimaterial,  it  may  be  that  my  mind  creates 
a  current,  a  wave,  in  the  ether,  and  this  semi- 
immaterial  ether  is  the  conducting-link  between 
my  immaterial  mind  and  my  material  body.  It 
is  as  good  a  conjecture  as  any,  and  is  in  line  with 
phenomena  not  yet  explained,  in  which,  if  a 
multitude  of  apparently  well  authenticated  tales 
are  true,  telepathic  influence  has  been  conveyed 
from  one  mind  to  another  far  distant — wireless 
telegraphy  through  ether.  I  do  not  accept  it  as 
based  on  any  real  evidence,  but  I  am  allowed  the 
conception  of  God  as  an  infinite  spirit,  residing  in 
infinite  ether,  acting  in  it,  working  through  it, 
ether  as  really  himself,  as  our  bodies  are  ourselves, 
converting  it  into  matter  or  mind,  and  controlling 


176      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

it  by  his  will.  Thus  I  may  dare  to  conceive  of 
ether  as  in  a  sense  the  body  of  God,  and  may  con- 
jecture that  when  God  made  all  things  out  of 
ether  he  made  them  not  out  of  nothing,  as  men 
have  been  wont  to  say,  but  out  of  himself;  and 
yet  I  would  conceive  of  the  ether  out  of  which 
everything  is  made,  as  God  only  in  the  lower 
sense  in  which  I  speak  of  my  body  as  myself, 
when  it  is  only  the  organ  by  which  the  7,  that  is, 
my  mind,  reaches  its  purposes. 

But  who  by  searching  can  find  out  God  ?  His 
infinity  dazes  us;  his  power  and  his  wisdom  awe 
us;  and  at  the  vision  of  his  dread  holiness  we 
cry,  "Woe  is  me,"  till  the  live  coal  from  off  the 
altar  glows  with  his  goodness,  his  boundless,  end- 
less mercy  and  love.  Then  the  spaciousness  of 
his  existence,  the  mystery  of  his  wisdom,  and  his 
resistless  power  all  appear  but  as  the  serving  satel- 
lites of  his  regnant  goodness;  and  we,  finite  souls, 
dust  in  his  balance,  can  only  praise  and  pray. 
Thus  it  is,  that  when  we  would  try  in  thought 
to  compass  God,  thought  rises  to  worship. 


CHAPTER  XV 
DUTY  AND   DUTIES 

THE  doctrine  of  duty  is  a  very  large  sub- 
ject, and  might  properly  require  volumes 
to  discuss  it  adequately.  In  a  single  chap- 
ter one  can  do  no  more  than  lay  down  some  main 
principles. 

Duty  has  a  dual  aspect.  It  has  to  do  with 
the  doer  and  with  that  to  which  the  doing  is  done. 
There  must  be  a  subject  and  an  object;  and  usu- 
ally the  object  will  be  other  than  the  subject, 
although  it  may  be  that  one  owes  and  performs 
duties  which  have  relation  solely  to  oneself. 

As  soon  as  one  has  relations  to  some  one  else 
duties  begin;  and  duty  becomes  as  primary,  as 
obligatory,  as  necessary,  as  are  geometrical  truths. 
A  person  may  be  so  stupid  as  not  to  see  them, 
just  as  an  ignorant  person  may  not  recognize  a 
simple  geometrical  truth;  but  moral  culture  will 
bring  out  the  applications  of  duty,  and  show  what 
is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  There  are  no  tribes 
so  low  that  they  do  not  recognize  that  there  are 
obligations,  and  that  some  things  are  right  and 
some  other  things  wrong.  The  comprehensive 
law  which  embraces  all  duty  is  the  exercise  of 

177 


178      WHAT  I   BELIEVE   AND   WHY 

good-will,  of  love  to  others,  with  its  corollary  that 
ill-will,  disregard  of  others'  welfare,  is  wrong. 

If  we  should  choose  to  believe  that  duty  rests 
in  seeking  enjoyment,  or  in  the  perfecting  of  one's 
own  powers,  or  in  obedience  to  the  customs  or 
laws  of  society,  even  as  the  words  ethics  and  morals 
come  from  Greek  and  Latin  words  meaning  cus- 
toms, even  so  the  customs  are  supposed  to  be 
right  because  for  the  welfare  of  society;  or  one's 
developing  of  himself  is  of  value  as  it  helps  the 
community;  or  the  enjoyment  sought  is  the  usual 
measure  of  benefit  to  others.  It  is  the  welfare 
of  the  commonwealth  or  of  its  members  individu- 
ally that  duty  requires  us  to  consider. 

In  previous  chapters  we  have  considered  God 
as  the  creator  of  the  world.  As  soon  as  God  cre- 
ated sentient  life  he  had  duties  toward  it.  Before 
such  creation,  if  there  was  any  such  time  within 
eternity,  he  may  be  imagined  as  being  alone,  but 
having  a  nature  which  knew  and  approved,  by 
anticipation,  any  duty  which  might  arise.  When 
he  created,  he  created  out  of  a  sense  of  duty,  of 
love  to  what  he  should  create.  It  may  not  be 
easy  to  designate  any  particular  duties  he  might 
have  toward  ether,  or  nebulas,  or  the  sun  and 
moon,  toward  grass  and  trees;  but  as  soon  as 
intelligent  human  beings  appeared,  or  in  antic- 
ipation of  them,  duties  developed.  Duties  are 
reciprocal;  but  God's  duties  to  man  whom  he 
has  made  are  prior  to  man's  duties  to  God. 


DUTY  AND   DUTIES  179 

It  is  a  very  serious  thing  for  us  to  attempt  to 
measure  God's  obligation  to  his  creatures,  but  at 
least  we  can  say,  notwithstanding  our  ignorance, 
as  compared  with  his  omniscience:  ''Shall  not  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?" 

God's  duties,  be  it,  then,  reverently  spoken, 
must  be  embraced  imder  the  term  of  loving  care. 
Other  terms,  such  as  justice,  righteousness,  holi- 
ness, express  but  incomplete  phases  of  what  in 
toto  is  love.  So  the  best  human  figure  under  which 
to  represent  God's  relation  to  his  creatures  is  that 
of  a  father,  not  lord  nor  king.  How  God  should 
exercise  his  fatherly  love  to  us  we  cannot  ante- 
cedently say;  but  we  know  he  is  good,  and  we 
know  what  he  has  done  for  us  in  nature.  His 
obligation  to  us  he  has  fulfilled  by  putting  nature 
imder  beneficial  laws  that  we  can  trust,  and  then 
bidding  us  depend  on  their  certainty.  Enough  of 
these  laws  are  so  clear  to  the  humblest  under- 
standing, those  of  the  seasons  and  the  growth  of 
vegetation,  that  the  lowest  primitive  savage  could 
know  them  and  live  a  happy  and  busy  life.  After 
only  two  hundred  generations,  if  the  life  of  man 
goes  back  six  thousand  years,  or  two  thousand 
if  the  race  has  lived  sixty  thousand  years,  we  have 
learned  how  to  use  more  completely  many  of  the 
occult  laws  of  nature,  and  the  millions  of  years 
yet  to  come  will  see  manifold  generations  multi- 
plying upon  the  earth  with  ever  happier  life.  We 
may    rest   in   the   assurance   that   the   heavenly 


i8o      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Father  will  do  all  that  his  wisdom  sees  is  best  for 
man  made  in  his  image;  and  we  may  indulge  the 
eternal  hope,  notwithstanding  the  gift  of  free  will, 
that  somehow  and  at  some  time  moral  evil  will 
drop  out  of  the  world.  Physical  suffering  we  may 
hope  will  continue  as  long  as  man  has  a  body  and 
can  grow  strong  by  patience  and  struggle. 

While  I  must  believe  that  the  duties  of  a  crea- 
tor to  his  creatures  are  prior  to  the  duties  of  the 
creature  to  the  creator,  yet  it  is  the  latter  with 
which  we  are  mostly  concerned.  We  can  depend 
upon  it  that  what  is  right  he  will  do,  and  we  can 
leave  that  to  him.  Our  chief  concern  is  with 
our  duties  to  him. 

(a)  I  have  said  that  the  evidence  which  nature 
gives  us  of  the  existence  of  God  is  probable  evi- 
dence, and  not  absolutely  demonstrative,  although 
the  weight  of  probability  seems  to  me  to  be  such 
as  to  be  practically  conclusive.  Now,  in  the  case 
of  action  on  probable  evidence,  two  considera- 
tions must  guide  our  conduct:  one,  the  amount 
of  evidence,  whether  great  or  small;  and  the 
other,  the  importance  of  the  subject  involved  in 
the  evidence.  The  stronger  the  evidence  the 
greater  the  obligation;  and  equally,  the  serious- 
ness of  the  subject  must  govern  the  attention  we 
give  to  it.  An  unimportant  conclusion,  even 
though  probable,  may  be  slighted  or  neglected; 
but  even  a  slight  degree  of  probability  on  such  a 
subject  as  this,  the  existence  of  God,  even  were 


DUTY  AND   DUTIES  i8i 

there  a  larger  probability  against  it,  could  not 
prudently  or  rightly  be  overlooked,  much  more 
with  the  prevailing  evidence  that  there  exists  a 
God  with  whom  we  have  to  do.  It  is  a  first  duty 
for  man  to  recognize  his  relation  to  the  infinite 
will  and  infinite  goodness  above  him.  One  who 
does  not  concern  himself  with  such  a  God  in 
whom  he  yet  believes  acts  as  if  he  were  mad. 

(6)  The  next  duty  we  have  toward  the  God  who 
is  our  Father  is  that  of  reverence  and  love,  rev- 
erence for  his  greatness,  love  answering  to  his 
love.  These  feelings  are  much  more  than  a  sense 
of  grandeur  or  an  approval  of  goodness ;  they  are 
directed  to  God  as  personal,  loving,  fatherly,  and 
respond  with  love  to  his  love.  If  we  believe  in 
such  a  God,  and  feel  so  toward  him,  we  shall  ex- 
press ourselves  in  honor  shown  to  him  and  in 
the  filial  fellowship  with  him  of  prayer  and  praise. 

(c)  Both  prudence  and  duty — for  prudence  is 
a  part  of  duty — require  that  we  should  act  in 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  the  good-will  of  such  a 
God.  We  give  him  a  character  that  rises  to  our 
highest  ideal  of  goodness.  Our  duty  is  to  come 
up  to  that  ideal,  as  far  as  we  can,  and  so  please 
him.  We  also  allow  to  his  infinite  goodness  the 
support  of  infinite  wisdom  and  power.  If  we  are 
his  creatures,  dependent  on  him,  it  is  simple  pru- 
dence to  make  him  our  friend.  He  will  love  our 
goodness;  and  if  we  are  evil  his  infinite  nature 
will  oppose  us  and  defeat  us;   and  a  sad  thing  it 


1 82      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

would  be  to  make  ourselves  enemies  of  the  loving, 
yet  holy  God.  Nor  is  this  the  attitude  of  selfish- 
ness. Our  own  love  of  goodness  would  ally  us 
with  the  God  of  all  goodness,  and  would  compel 
and  obligate  us  to  love  and  follow  him.  When  we 
love  and  serve  infinite  goodness  as  represented 
in  God,  we  are  loving  our  own  ideal  creation. 
More  than  that,  if  there  were  no  God  we  should 
be  required  by  our  own  sense  of  right  to  follow 
goodness  and  a  merely  ideal  God  in  a  stem  and 
stoic  way.  A  man  has  no  right,  even  apart  from 
God,  to  disobey  his  ideal  of  justice  and  kindness 
and  love.  Much  more  when  he  believes  in  God, 
and  such  a  God,  will  it  be  his  duty  to  reverence 
him,  to  learn  his  will  and  to  obey  him,  both  be- 
cause he  is  the  infinite  God  and  because  one's 
belief  in  the  moral  character  of  God  corresponds 
with  his  own  highest  ideals  of  what  is  right.  But 
beyond  obedience  due  to  one's  own  highest  ideals, 
which  is  ethics,  will  be  obedience  and  service  due 
to  God  himself,  which  is  religion. 

As  a  part  of  the  duty  to  act  in  such  a  way  as 
to  secure  the  good- will  of  God,  will  be  the  obliga- 
tion, also  supported  by  self-interest,  to  learn  his 
will.  To  be  sure,  the  will  of  God  will  be  identical 
with  the  requirements  of  our  own  highest  moral 
standards,  but  those  standards  alone,  obeyed  or 
disobeyed,  have,  apart  from  God,  no  force  of  ben- 
efit or  loss  beyond  one's  satisfaction  or  dissatis- 
faction with  himself,  the  approval  or  disapproval 


DUTY  AND   DUTIES  183 

of  one's  fellow  men,  the  laws  of  one's  country  and 
the  laws  of  nature.  But  disobedience  to  one's 
ethical  standards  may  be  secret  and  find  no  pun- 
ishment, only  the  pleasure  or  success  desired; 
while  one's  obedience  may  involve  great  incon- 
venience, or,  as  has  often  been  the  case,  may  be 
at  the  sacrifice  of  life.  In  such  cases  it  will  be  a 
very  strenuous  soul,  and  an  unusual  one,  which 
will  obey  the  impulse  of  its  own  sense  of  duty  un- 
supported by  the  sense  of  loyalty  to  a  superior 
power  who  must  be  obeyed.  Such  souls  there 
doubtless  are  who  will  do  right  without  regard  to 
God: 

"There  are  who  ask  not  if  thine  eye 
Be  on  them,  who  in  love  and  truth 
Where  no  misgiving  is  rely 

Upon  the  genial  sense  of  youth; 
Glad  hearts  without  reproach  or  blot 
Who  do  Thy  work  and  know  it  not.'' 

But  those  who  believe  in  God  usually  need  to 
add  to  the  incitements  of  their  own  moral  nature 
a  sense  of  the  sure  purpose  of  God  to  maintain 
in  his  own  rule  of  the  universe  the  moral  laws 
which  he  obeys  and  wills  to  have  obeyed  by  his 
creatures.  Inasmuch  as  the  belief  in  God  as  a 
personal  spirit  is  closely  related  to  belief  in  the 
future  existence  of  our  own  personal  souls,  one 
who  believes  in  God  and  immortality  must  seek 
to  know  what  is  right,  to  keep  it  in  mind,  to  obey 


1 84      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

it  in  conduct,  because  it  is  the  will  of  God,  and  he 
must  have  regard  to  his  verdict  and  award;  and 
that  is  a  consideration  far  higher  than  that  which 
we  read  in  the  noble  words  of  Cicero  written  to 
his  friend  Atticus,  when  anxious  about  his  duty 
to  the  falling  state:  *'What  will  history  say  of  me 
six  hundred  years  hence  ?  That  is  a  thing  which 
I  fear  much  more  than  the  petty  group  of  those 
who  are  alive  to-day."  Those  who  fail  to  keep 
God  and  the  eternal  life  before  them  are  likely  to 
sink  into  that  hopeless  and  irresolute  attitude  so 
well  expressed  by  Paul,  "If  the  dead  rise  not," 
"let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 

(d)  Other  duties  to  God  may  arise  or  seem  to 
arise,  which  follow  only  indirectly  from  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  existence,  but  they  are  formal,  cere- 
monial, and  not  basic.  One  may  properly  believe 
that  God  requires  the  sacrifice  of  oxen,  sheep, 
and  turtle-doves,  or  that  he  demands  payment  of 
tithes,  or  worship  in  a  temple,  or  the  hallowing  of 
a  day,  or  a  certain  manner  and  time  of  prayer. 
These  will  then  be  duties  toward  God,  and  will  be 
purely  religious.  The  obligation  to  perform  these 
acts  will  depend  on  the  evidence  we  have  that 
God  requires  them.  They  are  not  fundamental; 
a  change  as  to  the  evidence  of  their  being  the  will 
of  God  will  change  the  duty.  On  these  subjects 
we  may  differ.  "Let  every  man  be  fully  per- 
suaded in  his  own  mind."  Some  such  duties  may 
arise  as  the  natural  concomitant  of  belief  in  God. 


DUTY  AND   DUTIES  185 

Particularly  the  privilege  of  prayer  may  also  be 
a  duty,  and  also  some  form  of  public  worship 
and  fellowship  in  work  to  give  a  knowledge  of 
God  to  those  ignorant  of  him,  and  to  persuade 
those  who  neglect  him  to  recognize  and  obey 
him.  Also  those  duties  which  are  based  on  our 
relation  to  our  fellow  men,  usually  embraced  under 
the  term  morals,  are  religious  duties  in  so  far  as 
they  are  seen  to  be  required  by  the  will  of  God  and 
are  performed  in  obedience  to  him.  Accordingly 
in  the  higher  sense  all  duty  is  religion,  as  in  a 
wider  sense  all  religion  is  duty. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DUTIES  BETWEEN   MAN  AND   MAN 

I  HAVE  already  recorded  my  conviction  that 
the  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  inherent  in  our 
nature,  and  is  not  anything  to  be  argued  and 
proved.  The  rule  of  right,  as  I  have  said,  is  good- 
will, benevolence,  love;  as  the  absence  of  these, 
or  the  presence  of  their  opposites,  ill  will,  malev- 
olence, selfishness,  is  of  the  essence  of  wrong. 
It  has  also  been  mentioned  that  duties  arise  as 
soon  as  relations  arise  between  intelligent  beings. 
The  previous  chapter  has  considered  the  recip- 
rocal duties  of  God  and  man ;  the  present  chapter 
is  concerned  with  the  duties  of  men  to  each  other. 
To  be  sure,  some  duties  to  our  fellow  men  may 
depend  on  our  duty  to  God,  or  may  be  evidenced 
by  such  duty  to  God,  in  which  case  they  will 
belong  both  to  religion  and  to  morals.  Such 
would  be  a  duty  to  bring  men  to  the  knowledge  of 
God;  but  independently  of  and  apart  from  God, 
duty  to  our  human  brothers  arises  of  itself  and 
would  exist  if  there  were  no  God. 

This  sense  of  duty  we  call  conscience.  I 
would  define  it,  in  its  more  general  meaning,  as 
including  both  the  sense  of  obligation  to  show  good- 

i86 


DUTIES  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN     187 

will  to  others,  whether  God  or  man,  and,  next, 
the  more  or  less  intelligent  effort  to  obey  that 
sense  of  obligation.  Properly  it  is  only  the  for- 
mer element  which  is  conscience,  while  the  lat- 
ter is  guided  by  reason,  and  may  be  mistaken. 
The  sense  of  obligation  may  be  very  strong,  and 
is  always  imperative,  while  reason  may  be  wo- 
fully  mistaken  as  to  what  God  requires,  or  what 
would  be  of  benefit  to  mankind.  Men  have  be- 
lieved that  God  required  the  sacrifice  to  him  of 
every  first-bom  child,  and  the  father  and  mother 
properly  obeyed  their  conscience  in  the  hideous 
rite.  A  multitude  of  such  infants  have  lately 
been  found  in  the  excavation  of  Amorite  cities  of 
Palestine. 

Thus  what  is  right  in  one  generation  becomes 
wrong  in  another,  owing  to  better  views,  under 
new  conditions,  of  what  is  of  benefit  to  humanity. 
Even  from  our  fathers'  days  we  have  learned  this. 
Fifty  years  ago  multitudes  in  our  own  country 
believed  slavery  to  be  right,  an  ordinance  of  God, 
and  our  Constitution  indorsed  it;  now  the  whole 
world  condemns  it;  and,  coming  down  to  our 
own  times,  we  have  only  to  read  our  political  plat- 
forms to  learn  that  financial  and  commercial  pro- 
cedures which  nobody  condemned,  and  the  best 
of  men  engaged  in,  are  now  regarded  as  wrong 
and  are  made  illegal.  We  are  now  in  the  very 
welter  of  discussion  as  to  moral  questions,  by 
which  I  do  not  mean  the  obHgation  to  do  right. 


1 88      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

to  do  what  is  for  the  pubHc  weal,  but  the  question 
what  is  for  the  pubHc  welfare,  which  when  found 
we  will  obey.  With  the  changing  condition  of  so- 
ciety I  expect  great  changes  in  our  ideas  of  what 
is  right,  and  those  changes  may  be  very  radical. 
All  this  subject  of  duty  to  our  neighbor  comes 
under  the  head  of  morals,  by  which  I  mean  the 
exercise  of  duties  toward  our  fellow  men;  while 
ethics  has  a  wider  meaning,  and  covers  the  whole 
realm  of  duty,  theoretic  or  practical,  to  mankind 
or  to  any  other  beings  whatever. 

Under  an  analysis  of  our  definition  of  morals, 
as  the  exercise  of  the  duty  of  good-will  to  otir 
fellow  men,  we  may  embrace  the  individual  duties 
which  we  should  exercise;  and  we  may  consider 
them  as  duties  to  oneself,  duties  to  individuals 
generally,  duties  to  our  families,  duties  to  the 
social  or  business  association  of  which  we  are  a 
part,  duties  to  our  town,  state,  or  nation,  and 
duties  to  the  world  as  a  whole. 

(a)  And  first  our  duties  to  ourselves.  These 
depend  chiefly  on  their  bearing  upon  our  ability 
to  perform  in  the  best  way  our  duties  to  others. 
All  is  embraced  in  the  duty  to  make  the  very  best 
of  our  powers  so  that  we  can  use  them  to  the 
greatest  advantage  for  the  benefit  of  others.  It 
means  the  preservation  of  a  clean,  pure,  and 
healthy  body,  such  as  will  disgust  no  one,  and 
infect  no  one;  and  this  means  the  planning  for  a 
long  life  of  usefulness.     It  means  the  abstention 


DUTIES  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN     189 

from  alcoholics  and  narcotics,  and  with  this  I 
would  include  tobacco  as  well  as  alcohol  and 
opium.  It  means  abtmdance  of  food,  abundance 
of  exercise,  and  abundance  of  sleep;  it  does  not 
mean  time  wasted  in  any  of  these  good  things. 
There  must  be  recreation  and  pleasant  discourse, 
but  these  are  subsidiary  to  larger  purposes. 

It  means  still  more  the  very  best  attainable 
culture  of  our  minds  by  education,  and  of  our 
wills  by  the  exercise  of  our  powers,  so  that  we 
may  learn  to  do  in  the  best  way  possible  to  us 
the  duties  incumbent  upon  us.  Those  duties  dif- 
fer, as  our  natural  powers  differ.  There  is  great 
difference  between  us  in  mind  as  well  as  body, 
and  some  are  fitted  to  lead  well,  and  others  to  fol- 
low well.  Particularly  in  youth  is  it  our  duty  to 
use  all  our  effort  to  equip  ourselves  for  future  ser- 
vice. An  infant  can  do  nothing  but  eat  and  sleep 
and  grow;  the  main  duties  of  the  child — not  by 
any  means  all — are  to  grow  in  mental  power  and 
in  moral  purpose  by  study  and  by  useful  labor, 
getting  ready  to  fill  as  high  a  field  of  service  as 
possible.  That  field  may  be  as  leader  of  men,  or 
it  may  be  in  filling  quite  as  conscientiously  some 
of  those  ordinary  and  limited  fields  of  service 
which  in  the  nature  of  things  must  come  to  most 
of  us.  With  what  we  can  reach  we  must  be  satis- 
fied, and  forttmately  are  satisfied.  I  know  I  am 
not  competent  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States,  or  president  of  a  bank  or  of  a  board  of 


I  go      WHAT   I   BELIEVE   AND   WHY 

trade,  and  I  don't  envy  such  fortunate  people  or 
envy  their  position  or  wealth.  I  believe  that  for 
one's  own  character,  to  make  the  best  of  one- 
self, every  one — artisan,  toiler,  professional  man, 
master,  mistress,  or  servant — should  give  his  ser- 
vice not  stintedly,  but  generously  and  liberally, 
and  with  a  happy  mind. 

I  believe  that  to  cultivate  one's  body  or  mind 
or  soul  just  for  one's  own  pleasure  or  improvement 
is  unworthy  and  selfish.  One  can  be  an  intellec- 
tual as  well  as  a  physical  inebriate,  all  intoxicated 
with  his  own  selfish  satisfaction,  and,  because  use- 
less to  others,  stunted  in  his  own  soul,  drunk  with 
conceit  of  himself,  incapable  of  measuring  larger 
values.  One's  duty  to  oneself  forbids  him  to  live 
such  a  life. 

(b)  Our  duties  to  other  human  beings  generally 
may  be  briefly  stated.  They  are  embraced  in 
what  has  been  called  the  love  of  benevolence  as 
distinguished  from  the  love  of  complaisance,  that 
is,  of  general  good- will  as  distinguished  from  spe- 
cial affection.  It  means  that  as  we  have  oppor- 
tunity we  will  do  such  service  as  we  can,  even  if  it 
be  but  giving  a  smile,  while  it  may  be  as  much  as 
the  Samaritan  did  for  the  man  who  fell  among 
thieves. 

(c)  The  family  is  the  most  important,  the  most 
intimate  unit  of  which  society  is  composed,  and 
no  duties  are  more  important  than  those  related 
to  the  family.     On  the  family  rests  the  continua- 


DUTIES  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN     191 

tion  of  the  human  race  upon  the  earth;  and  as 
humanity  is  more  of  value  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
imiverse  we  know  put  together,  its  succession  of 
births  to  replace  deaths  is  of  the  first  importance, 
not  second  even  to  that  of  preserving  individual 
life.  It  is  desirable,  then,  that  all  should  marry, 
and  it  is  desirable  and  necessary  that,  in  order  to 
maintain  the  present  population,  even  without 
increase,  every  married  pair  should  have  three 
children,  two  to  replace  themselves,  and  one  more 
to  allow  for  the  chance  that  one-third  will  die 
before  reaching  the  age  of  marriage.  Of  course 
many  of  marriageable  age  will  unfortunately  never 
marry,  and  more  than  three  children  will  be  neces- 
sary for  each  couple  in  order  to  fill  up  their  lack 
of  duty.  I  believe  it  is  desirable  that  marriage 
should  not  be  long  delayed  after  the  parties  reach 
marriageable  age,  and  that  it  is  a  great  misfortune 
that  present  social  conditions  tend  to  delay  mar- 
riage to  an  age  when  the  parties  are  more  averse 
to  having  children,  and  have  learned  how  pru- 
dently to  limit  their  number.  Particularly  do  I 
believe  it  is  the  duty  of  the  more  ambitious  and 
better  educated  to  desire  large  families.  The 
abler  in  brain  and  body  a  man  and  wife,  the  more 
imperative  their  duty  to  leave  many  to  inherit 
their  ability.  This  duty  is  higher  than  any  duty 
to  themselves. 

I  believe  that  the  laws  of  marriage  belong  to 
the  state  and  not  to  the  church,  except  as  all 


192      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

things  are  to  be  judged  by  the  church.  We  have 
reached  the  blessed  condition  of  peace  in  which 
the  number  of  the  sexes  is  measurably  equalized 
and  monogamy  prevails.  But  in  a  barbarous 
period,  when  the  men  were  killed  off  in  war,  it 
was  best  for  the  state  that  polygamy  should  pro- 
vide homes  for  the  superfluous  women,  that  their 
children  might  replace  the  loss  by  war.  Monog- 
amy is  best  for  us  now,  but  that  implies  that 
somehow  early  marriage  for  all  of  reasonable 
health  should  be  provided,  and  possibly  assured. 
It  is  the  advantage  to  society  that  should  fix 
legislation  as  to  marriage,  and  also  divorce. 
While  the  rights  of  parents  and  children  should 
be  rigidly  protected,  I  can  see  no  reason  why 
divorce  should  not  be  allowed  in  cases  in  which, 
by  the  fault  of  either  party,  marriage  proves  a 
curse  rather  than  a  blessing.  Unfaithfulness  to 
the  marriage  bond  is  an  injustice  to  the  innocent 
party,  and  a  proper  cause  for  divorce;  and  other 
acts  of  injustice,  such  as  cruelty  or  desertion,  are 
just  as  truly  such.  I  also  believe  that  the  main- 
tenance of  freely  accessible  houses  of  prostitution 
in  our  cities  is  a  fearful  evil,  that  it  is  a  shocking 
impediment  to  marriage,  a  distributer  of  disease, 
and  that  its  existence  anywhere  is  a  burning  dis- 
grace to  the  community. 

The  virtues  that  attend  marriage  are  familiar 
to  us — affection,  chastity,  parental  care,  and  thrift. 
In  marriages,  husband  and  wife  overcome  selfish- 


DUTIES  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN     193 

ness  by  loving  each  other  and  their  children  more 
than  they  love  themselves.  It  is  a  narrow  circle, 
but  within  that  circle  it  cultivates  the  sweetest 
virtues,  and  educates  each  for  the  wider  expres- 
sions of  good- will. 

{d)  But  it  is  a  stingy  soul  that  confines  its  affec- 
tions within  the  limits  of  a  single  family.  We 
ought  to  be  interested  in  our  neighbors.  Our 
business  and  our  residence  embrace  others  than 
the  members  of  our  own  households.  We  are  in 
churches,  clubs,  societies,  unions,  established  for 
the  very  purpose  of  helping  one  another.  Every 
such  fellowship  enlarges  or  should  enlarge  the 
heart.  It  need  not  dissipate  the  love  of  family, 
but  it  tends  to  make  family  love  less  selfish,  and 
teaches  us  to  consider  the  duty  of  serving  others. 
Particularly  those  labor  organizations  which  are 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  mutual  support  and  the 
defense  of  the  interests  of  the  members,  teach  loy- 
alty and  self-sacrifice,  and  are  of  moral  benefit  to 
the  members  when  kept  within  legitimate  limits. 
But  what  is  generous  toward  fellow  members 
may  become  ungenerous  and  cruel  in  its  belhg- 
erent  treatment  of  those  not  members.  We  have 
seen  such  unions,  whose  purpose  is  beautiful  be- 
cause helpful,  perverted  to  help  each  other  by 
outrage  and  murder.  But  that  is  the  old  story 
which  the  war  spirit  has  taught  our  people,  that 
they  can  benefit  themselves  by  slaughtering  by 
the  thousand  those  of  other  nations. 


194      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

{e)  That  is  a  yet  wider  loyalty  which  we  prop- 
erly cultivate  as  members  of  a  town,  city,  state, 
or  nation,  and  we  call  it  civic  pride  or  patriotism. 
It  is  a  true  adage  that  it  is  sweet  and  beautiful 
to  die  for  one's  country.  A  noble  virtue  is  patri- 
otism, because  it  represents  a  wide  expansion  of 
good-will  toward  the  entire  body  of  citizens  of 
which  the  patriot  is  one;  and  it  is  displayed  in 
all  its  glory  in  the  event  of  war,  which  risks  the 
sacrifice  of  life  itself.  And  yet  its  perversion  is 
the  occasion  of  more  wrongs  than  almost  anything 
else.  It  teaches  us,  too  often,  in  the  love  of  our 
own  people  to  hate  those  of  another  race  or  na- 
tion, Chinese,  Italians,  Irishmen,  Jews,  Negroes; 
and  in  war  it  allows  of  every  atrocity.  It  is  this 
narrow,  pestiferous  perversion  of  the  patriotic 
spirit  which  shows  itself  in  race  pride  and  race 
prejudice,  which  makes  for  our  nation  all  its 
troubles  in  the  South,  in  Porto  Rico,  and  the 
Philippines;  with  China  and  Japan,  and  which 
gives  England  her  troubles  in  India  and  South 
Africa,  and  which  in  war  makes  nations  hate  and 
murder  each  other.  But  at  times  the  beautiful 
spirit  of  patriotism  is  met  and  conquered,  when  it 
descends  to  narrowness,  by  the  equally  beautiful 
and  equally  narrow  spirit  of  class  loyalty,  as  when 
in  France  and  Germany,  forgetting  their  old  na- 
tional hostilities,  the  Socialists  met  and  declared 
that  they  would  allow  no  war  between  the  na- 
tions, for  the  love  of  humanity  is  greater  than 


DUTIES  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN     195 

the  love  of  nation.  Yet  in  the  terrible  European 
war  we  have  seen  this  more  generous  class  loyalty 
swept  aside  by  a  torrent  of  perverse  patriotism. 

(J)  So  I  come  back  where  I  began,  to  the 
good-will  toward  all  men  individually  and  gener- 
ally, as  the  true  inclusive  virtue  and  duty.  Un- 
perverted,  the  love  of  family,  of  class,  of  town  or 
nation  is  beautiful,  but  true  virtue  is  not  limited. 
Limit  is  vice.  The  enlarged  soul  will  have  inter- 
ests in  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  will  rejoice  to 
learn  of  their  progress  and  welfare,  will  seek  in 
some  way  to  bring  them  into  a  better  knowledge 
of  God,  to  a  truer  education,  to  a  fuller  liberty, 
and  will  not  confine  one's  interest  to  one's  own 
family,  section,  or  nation.  Herein  lies  the  obli- 
gation of  Christian  missions,  a  chief,  if  not  the 
chief  duty  of  those  who  accept  the  teachings  of 
love  taught  us  by  our  Lord,  and  who  believe 
Christianity  is  the  best  of  all  boons  for  the  world. 
Here  duty  to  man  coincides  with  duty  to  God.  It 
is  not  limited  to  carrying  the  blessings  of  religion 
to  the  people  of  our  own  country,  called  home 
missions;  it  is  far  greater  than  that,  for  it  em- 
braces the  most  distant,  the  most  benighted,  the 
least  attractive  of  all  earth's  races,  because  its 
love  is  imlimited,  is  all-embracing.  It  sends  those 
who  can  go  to  redeem  paganism  or  savagery.  It 
is  the  radiant  blossom  of  Christianity,  the  broadest 
expression  of  essential  and  undistinguishing  love. 
It  is  the  performance  of  the  fullest  duty  to  all  our 


196      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

brother  men,  and  also  of  duty  to  Him  who  asks: 
"Whom  shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?" 
Yet  ever  with  this  proviso  must  we  judge  of 
duty,  that  it  must  be  measured  by  opportunity. 
It  is  only  the  privilege  of  education  and  culture 
that  allows  a  man  to  embrace  the  whole  world  in- 
telligently in  the  arms  of  his  love.  One  who  is 
ignorant  of  all  beyond  the  meagre  circuit  of  his 
vision  can  love  only  what  he  sees.  Then  let  him 
love  his  ball  club,  or  his  shopmates  up  to  his 
little  limit.  That  is  his  virtue,  his  duty,  and  let 
his  children  go  to  school,  study  geography,  read 
the  foreign  news  in  the  daily  paper,  and  be  better 
than  their  fathers,  not  because  they  love  better, 
but  because  they  love  more  widely. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

ESSENTIALS   AND    NON-ESSENTIALS    IN 
RELIGION 

THERE  are  many  doctrines,  or  dogmas,  that 
cannot  be  included  in  so  restricted  a  series 
of  chapters  as  the  present  on  "What  I  Be- 
lieve and  Why,"  because  it  is  not  important  to 
have  any  belief  about  them ;  and  of  some  of  them 
it  is  impossible  to  have  evidence,  other  than  that 
which  is  drawn  from  a  mechanical  view  of  Scrip- 
ture; and  others  as  to  which  we  may  profitably 
leave  knowledge  to  God,  as  the  knowledge  can 
have  no  concern  to  us,  but  only  to  him. 

Of  those  of  which  it  is  not  important  that  we 
should  have  any  belief,  we  may  take  one  com- 
monly held  in  the  Catholic  Church,  that  of  the 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  that  is,  the  doc- 
trine that  came  into  vogue  about  the  time  of  the 
Nestorian  controversy,  and  the  development  of 
honor  to  Mary  as  "the  mother  of  God,"  but 
which  had  its  origin  in  a  Gnostic  heresy,  and  held 
that  she  was  taken  up,  both  body  and  soul,  by 
angels  into  heaven.  There  is  not  a  bit  of  evi- 
dence for  it  from  Scripture  or  from  any  other 
source.     It  is  a  pure  invention  of  fancy. 

Equally  of  no  importance  to  us,  and  equally 
197 


198      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

without  Biblical  or  other  evidence,  is  the  dogma 
of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
a  belief  which  grew  out  of  the  notion  that  the 
mother  of  our  Lord  must  have  been  too  immacu- 
late to  have  inherited  any  stain  of  original  sin 
from  our  first  parents.  It  depends  on  another 
doctrine,  that  of  the  original  inherited  corruption 
of  human  nature  from  Adam,  which  itself  needs 
proof. 

Some  other  doctrines  taught  in  certain  creeds 
have  no  proof  whatever,  but  would  be  of  impor- 
tance if  true.  Such  is  that  propoimded  by  the 
Vatican  Council  declaring  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope,  in  his  official  declarations  of  doctrine.  If 
he  is  thus  infallible  it  is  important  that  we  should 
know  it.  But  there  being  no  proof  of  it,  and  its 
unlikelihood  being  very  great,  it  is  not  important 
to  dwell  upon  it.  In  a  similar  class  we  may  cite 
the  value  of  indulgences  and  the  doctrine  of 
purgatory. 

It  is  desirable  for  us  to  know  as  many  true 
things  as  possible,  but  we  cannot  know  them  all. 
Some  are  important  and  some  unimportant.  As 
to  some,  if  we  do  not  know  them  correctly  it  is 
death  to  us,  while  as  to  others  we  may  err  without 
mischief.  It  is  also  desirable  that  we  should  do 
as  many  good  things  as  possible,  but  some  good 
things  it  is  of  much  more  importance  that  we 
should  do  than  that  we  should  do  others.  It  is 
more  important  to  save  a  child's  life  than  a  dog's. 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS     199 

In  the  field  of  theology,  which  has  to  do  with 
beliefs,  and  in  that  of  religion,  which  has  to  do 
with  character  and  conduct,  there  are  doctrines 
or  duties  of  various  grades  of  value,  some  impor- 
tant, some  of  little  importance;  and,  what  is 
more  to  the  purpose,  the  duties  relating  to  con- 
duct are  vastly  more  important  than  the  beliefs. 
We  value  the  ignorant  man,  if  good,  vastly  more 
than  the  knowing  man,  if  bad.  Virtue  is  more 
than  learning,  but  the  complete  man  has  both. 

We  may  not  be  under  obligation  to  have 
knowledge ;  we  are  under  obligation  to  have  char- 
acter. And  character  is  simple,  within  the  reach 
of  everybody.  It  is  nothing  more  than  to  do  the 
most  good  things  one  can,  but  only  within  the 
limits  of  one's  knowledge.  His  knowledge  may 
be  very  imperfect,  and  his  belief  quite  wrong,  but 
a  man  must  follow  according  to  what  he  knows. 
Abraham,  as  the  story  goes,  thought  it  his  duty, 
because  he  believed  God  required  it,  to  kill  his 
first-born,  and  he  prepared  to  do  it,  as  thousands 
of  Canaanites  actually  did.  It  was  his  duty. 
Of  course,  God  never  commanded  any  such  thing 
— he  could  not  do  it,  but  that  did  not  make  the 
action  wrong;  for  misbelief  made  it  right  to  lift 
the  knife.  Thus  a  thousand  cruel  acts  in  pagan 
worship  are  made  pious  and  praiseworthy,  and 
are  doubtless  acceptable  to  God.  It  is  a  comfort 
to  think  so,  while  we  try  to  enlighten  ignorance 
and  make  the  world  happier  and  better. 


200      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

As  all  conduct  and  duty  depend  on  our  rela- 
tions to  others,  to  God  or  our  fellow  men,  our 
duties  will  depend  on  what  we  know  or  believe 
about  them.  If  our  circumstances  have  allowed 
us  to  believe  in  God,  we  shall  have  very  serious 
duties  toward  him;  and  our  duties  toward  our 
fellow  men  will  vary  in  importance  according  to 
what  we  know  of  them.  Fortunately,  our  prin- 
cipal duty  toward  God  coincides  with  our  duty  to 
our  fellow  men,  for  it  must  be  his  wish,  implanted 
in  our  consciences,  that  we  should  do  them  good. 
That  is  the  larger  part  of  our  duty  to  God;  and 
the  obligation  to  do  it  for  him  adds  immense 
emphasis  to  sense  of  obligation  involved  in  the 
natural  virtue  of  altruism.  The  bare  stoical  ac- 
ceptance of  altruism  instead  of  self-love  will  seem 
frail  and  cold  unless  it  is  stimulated  by  belief  that 
it  is  the  will  of  God.  Religious  people  ought  to 
be,  and  I  think  they  are,  the  leaders  in  all  service 
for  good  order  and  public  welfare. 

Duties  directed  immediately  toward  God  alone 
are  comparatively  few,  and,  I  may  say,  less  es- 
sential. We  have  done  our  best  for  him  when 
we  have  done  our  best  for  his  creatures.  We 
cannot  add  to  his  goodness  or  wisdom  or  hap- 
piness. All  we  can  do  is  to  tell  him  that  we  love 
him  and  will  do  his  will,  and  we  can  also  ask 
him  to  do  what  we  know  he  will  do  wisely.  He 
has  made  laws  for  the  conduct  of  his  world,  and 
those  laws  he  will  not  break;    but  I  do  not  see 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS     201 

why  he  cannot  guide  their  operation,  even  as 
we  can,  and  as  I  beHeve  he  has  done  through  the 
whole  process  of  the  evolution  of  this  and  all 
worlds. 

Beyond  such  prayer  and  grateful  praise  I  can 
think  of  no  special  act  of  service  we  can  do  directly 
for  God  alone  unless  it  be  in  certain  forms  of 
public  worship,  and  even  those  have  their  ad- 
vantage in  fellowship  with  others.  We  can  ob- 
serve the  Sabbath  because  we  believe  he  com- 
manded it ;  or  we  can  engage  in  certain  ceremonies 
or  sacraments  as  ordained  by  him,  but  these  are 
all  mere  forms  and  ordinances,  appointed  for  their 
value  to  us  and  not  valuable  in  themselves.  If 
the  value  fails  then  the  observance  vanishes. 
They  are  but  of  secondary  importance,  for  the 
one  essential  worship  toward  God  is  to  worship 
him  in  the  spirit  and  in  truth. 

When  we  pass  from  the  realm  of  conduct  and 
duty  to  that  of  knowledge  and  belief,  the  case  is 
not  so  simple.  There  are  many  grades  of  evi- 
dence leading  to  more  or  less  assurance  of  belief, 
and  grades  of  importance  of  our  theological  doc- 
trines. In  his  remarkable  "  Self -Re  view,"  written 
in  his  old  age,  Richard  Baxter,  after  telling  how 
his  own  beliefs  had  been  modified  since  youth, 
makes  the  following  very  instructive  gradation 
of  certainties: 

My  certainty  that  I  am  a  man,  is  before  my  certainty 
that  there  is  a  God,  for  quod  facit  notum  est  magis  notum  : 


202      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

my  certainty  that  there  is  a  God  is  greater  than  my  cer- 
tainty that  he  requireth  love  and  hoHness  of  his  creature: 
my  certainty  of  this  is  greater  than  my  certainty  of  the 
life  of  reward  and  punishment  hereafter:  my  certainty 
of  that  is  greater  than  my  certainty  of  the  endless  dura- 
tion of  it,  and  of  the  immortality  of  individuate  souls: 
my  certainty  of  the  Deity  is  greater  than  my  certainty 
of  the  Christian  faith:  my  certainty  of  the  Christian 
faith,  in  its  essentials,  is  greater  than  my  certainty  of  the 
perfection  and  infalhbility  of  all  the  Holy  Scriptures: 
my  certainty  of  that  is  greater  than  my  certainty  of  the 
meaning  of  many  particular  texts,  and  so  of  the  truth  of 
many  particular  doctrines,  or  of  the  canonicalness  of  some 
certain  books.  So  that  as  you  see  by  what  gradations  my 
understanding  doth  proceed,  so  also  my  certainty  differeth 
as  the  evidences  differ.  And  they  that  have  attained  to 
greater  perfection,  and  a  higher  degree  of  certainty  than 
I,  should  pity  me  and  produce  their  evidence  to  help  me. 

In  this  quotation  it  is  suggested  that  there  is 
a  gradation  also  of  the  relative  importance  of 
various  doctrines  which  have  found  a  place  in 
creeds. 

The  first  by  far  in  importance  of  all  religious 
beliefs  is  belief  in  the  existence  of  God;  for  on 
belief  in  God  all  other  religious  beliefs  rest,  and, 
what  is  more  important,  all  religious  duties  of  con- 
duct. While  it  is  of  much  more  importance  to  be 
good  than  to  believe  correctly  in  God,  or  to  be- 
lieve at  all  in  him,  yet  a  belief  in  an  infinite  God 
of  boundless  goodness  and  holiness  must  have  the 
effect  which  the  vision  had  on  Isaiah,  who  replied 
to  the  call  of  God  and  the  cry  of  the  world:  "Here 
am  I;  send  me." 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS     203 

Following  Richard  Baxter,  I  recur  to  some  of 
our  more  or  less  accepted  Christian  doctrines 
which  depend  on  our  belief  in  God.  Just  as  our 
belief  in  God  must  rest  on  good,  rational  evi- 
dence, so  all  our  religious  beliefs  which  depend 
on  it  must  be  supported  by  evidence.  Reason 
is  always  arbiter.  For  children,  and  for  those 
who  are  children  in  faith,  fed  with  milk  and  not 
with  meat,  it  is  enough  to  take  the  word  of  the 
church,  but  not  so  for  the  teachers  of  the  church 
nor  for  any  one  else  who  has  learned  to  think  for 
himself  and  has  the  opportunity  to  do  it.  I  take 
it  that  those  who  formulated  our  creeds  were 
mere  men  like  us,  and  did  not  know  as  much  as 
we  do  and  could  not  possibly  know  as  much. 
We  have  more  science,  more  knowledge  of  his- 
tory and  philosophy  than  they,  and  can  judge 
and  criticise  on  matters  of  belief  better  than  they. 
I  reject  and  resent  the  idea  that  my  belief  is  to 
be  dictated  to  me  by  anybody  or  by  any  church. 
To  my  own  master,  God,  and  to  him  alone,  I 
stand  or  fall.  In  matters  of  morals  as  well  as  of 
fact  I  must  stand  on  my  own  conscience,  no 
matter  what  the  church  says,  or  what  the  law 
says,  or  what  the  Bible  says,  or  what  I  am  told 
anywhere  or  by  anybody  that  God  says.  I  will 
search  and  get  evidence  from  all  these  and  from 
every  source,  but  in  the  end  my  best  decision  is 
final  and  supreme;   and  so  is  every  man's. 

For  illustrations  of  more  or  less  accepted  Chris- 
tian doctrines  let  us  take  the  authority  of  the 


204      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Bible.  I  take  it  that  the  important  thing  in  it 
is  its  truth,  or  the  true  things  in  it.  Some  hold 
that  it  is  so  fully  inspired  from  God  that  every- 
thing in  it  is  true.  If  such  were  the  case  it  would 
be  a  great  saving  of  thought.  But  we  know  that 
cannot  be  so,  for  the  world  was  not  made  in  six 
days,  and  there  was  no  such  universal  flood  as 
is  described,  and  the  multiplicity  of  languages  did 
not  originate  in  Babel,  and  the  second  coming  of 
our  Lord  did  not  occur  ''in  this  generation,"  and 
God  did  not  send  "a  lying  spirit"  to  deceive 
Ahab,  and  they  were  not  blessed  who  dashed  the 
''little  ones  against  the  stones."  But  there  may 
be  a  degree  of  divine  guidance  and  inspiration 
which  does  not  wholly  swamp  a  man's  idiosyn- 
crasies and  ignorance,  and  it  is  the  truth  in  the 
Bible  that  is  of  enormous  value;  and  what  is 
truth  and  what  is  error  we  have  to  judge  for  our- 
selves; and  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  no  one  doctrine 
of  inspiration  is  of  much  importance,  for  we  al- 
ways have  to  check  its  statements  by  our-  own 
study  of  historical  evidence  and  our  ethical  sense. 
For  the  important  thing  is  the  real  truth,  not  the 
way  God  told  the  truth  or  allowed  the  error  to 
be  mixed  with  the  truth.  That  is  his  knowledge 
and  not  ours;  and  a  stiff  doctrine  of  inspiration 
has  driven  not  a  few  souls  away  from  the  Chris- 
tian faith. 

Believing   in   God,   the   belief   in  his  absolute 
goodness  and  love  is  of  the  greatest  importance. 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS    205 

Jesus  taught  that  God  is  to  be  addressed  as  our 
father  rather  than  as  king.  His  love  to  us  is  a 
father's  love.  Trusting  in  his  love,  other  doc- 
trines taught  of  old  and  even  now  are  of  no  serious 
importance,  particularly  if  they  do  not  at  all  affect 
us  or  our  conduct,  but  relate  to  subjects  on  which 
God  only  has  knowledge.  Such  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  division  of  the  divine  nature  into  three 
persons,  each  of  which  is  the  fulness  of  God,  as 
taught  in  the  Nicene  and  Athanasian  creeds. 
Whether  this  is  true  or  not,  God  only  knows  and 
we  know  not.  We  can  have  no  knowledge  of  it 
except  from  the  Scriptures  as  believed  to  con- 
tain a  revelation  on  the  subject  from  God.  But 
students  of  the  Bible  differ  as  to  what  it  teaches, 
and  various  views  as  to  its  teaching  can  honestly 
be  held.  If  we  believe  in  three  persons  after 
Athanasius,  or  in  three  phases  after  Sabellius, 
or  in  one  undifferentiated  God  after  Arius,  makes 
no  serious  difference,  for  if  we  love  and  serve  God 
just  the  same,  God  will  surely  love  us,  however 
we  may  have  mistaken  in  a  matter  that  does  not 
concern  us,  but  concerns  only  God.  There  is  a 
creed  which  sends  to  hell  those  that  differ  from 
its  doctrine,  but  its  statement  that  such  will 
without  doubt  perish  everlastingly  is  an  impious 
lie,  an  insult  to  God,  a  denial  of  his  goodness. 

Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  doctrine  that  Jesus 
while  on  earth  was  the  second  person  in  the 
Trinity,  containing  in  himself  full  Godhead,  and 


2o6      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

this  teaching  many  draw  from  the  Bible.  As  to 
whether  this  is  a  fact,  Christians  differ,  although 
on  this,  as  on  the  matter  of  the  Trinity,  the  large 
majority  accept  it.  Whether  true  or  not  is  a 
question  partly  of  history,  partly  of  psychology, 
and  the  evidence  is  wholly  found  in  Scripture, 
and  is  variously  interpreted;  and  our  conclusion 
is  affected  by  the  weight  we  put  on  a  doctrine  of 
inspiration.  As  a  matter  of  history  or  psychology, 
this  question  of  the  nature  of  Jesus  Christ,  whether 
fully  or  only  mediately  and  partially  divine,  or 
whether  he  was  only  an  extraordinary  human 
teacher  of  religion,  is  very  interesting,  but  cannot 
be  of  supreme  importance  to  us;  for  whichever 
view  we  take  of  it,  our  duty  remains  the  same, 
and  the  honest  believer,  whatever  his  conclusion, 
must  be  equally  acceptable  to  a  good  God.  God 
must  love  goodness  wherever  it  is  and  whatever 
its  intellectual  mistakes,  and  he  cannot  help 
loving  it.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  know  just 
how  much  divinity  was  in  Jesus.  That  is  God's 
affair  rather  than  ours. 

And  this  connects  itself  with  the  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement,  on  which  theologians  have  guessed 
so  much  and  have  imposed  so  much  on  others. 
The  question  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment presumes  to  answer  is,  How  does  God 
manage  to  forgive  sin  ?  What  satisfaction  for 
sin  does  God  require  ?  Men  have  differed  im- 
mensely on  this  subject,  defending,  all  of  them, 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS     207 

their  view  from  the  Bible.  But  only  God  knows, 
and  we  have  pretty  much  ceased  to  discuss  this 
question,  and  we  are  coming  to  leave  it  to  God. 
The  question  is  not  important,  except  as  it  as- 
sumes, to  begin  with,  that  some  satisfaction  is 
necessary.  There  may  be;  there  may  not  be,  any 
more  than  the  father  in  the  parable  of  the  Prod- 
igal Son  required  satisfaction  before  he  should  wel- 
come the  son  with  a  ring  and  the  fatted  calf. 

The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is 
one  of  vital  importance,  not  because  our  duty  to 
be  good  would  be  any  different  if  we  believed  the 
soul  not  to  be  immortal,  but  because  disbelief  in 
it  would  lead  a  multitude  of  careless  souls,  per- 
haps most  of  us,  to  say  with  Paul's  too  hasty 
language:  ''If  the  dead  are  not  raised  let  us  eat 
and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  But  yet  the 
nature  of  that  future  life  is  something  that  we 
can  know  very  little  or  nothing  of  from  any  light 
of  nature,  and  the  purely  figurative  language  of 
Scripture  leaves  us  with  little  more  than  the  con- 
clusion which  nature  gives  us,  that  the  God  of 
all  goodness  will  do  what  is  just  and  right.  It  is 
a  remarkable  fact,  accordingly,  that  teachers  of 
the  Christian  religion  have  very  nearly  ceased  to 
preach  heaven  and  hell  to  the  people;  and  it 
must  be  because  they  think  the  doctrine  of  future 
rewards  and  punishments  less  important  and  less 
definitely  certain  than  their  fathers  did.  They 
now  emphasize  other  persuasives  to  a  right  life. 


2o8      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

The  doctrines  much  discussed  years  ago  of  the 
freedom  of  the  will  and  the  divine  decrees  ap- 
pear to  me  of  little  practical  importance.  They 
divided  the  Methodists  from  the  Calvinists,  and 
now  nobody  is  much  interested  in  them;  and  yet 
the  old  division  of  the  denominations  continues, 
when  the  occasion  for  it  has  passed.  It  was  thought 
that  if  God  decreed  all  our  acts,  then  our  responsi- 
bility was  all  gone,  and  with  it  virtue  and  vice; 
but  we  know  better.  We  see  that  there  was  a 
flaw  somewhere,  and  where  it  was  we  care  little, 
for  the  conflict  is  over.  As  with  so  many  of  these 
questions,  it  is  none  of  our  business  how  God  made 
his  plans  or  what  he  planned.  That  is  all  God's 
business.    Our  business  is  to  be  good  like  God. 

There  was  an  old  doctrine  of  congenital  total 
depravity,  of  inherited  sin  that  came  down  to  us 
by  human  nature  corrupted  in  Adam.  I  don't 
hear  it  much  preached  now,  but  it  is  yet  in  ven- 
erated creeds.  One  reason  for  its  disappearance 
is  because  we  have  ceased  to  believe  that  there 
was  such  a  man  as  Adam,  or  if  there  was,  that  we 
could  possibly  have  sinned  in  him.  And  we  find 
it  impossible  to  believe  in  total  depravity  from 
birth,  resulting  from  a  nature  corrupted  by  one 
disobedience  of  Adam.  At  any  rate,  the  series 
of  doctrines  related  thereto  appears  to  me  to  be, 
for  the  Christian  life,  of  little  practical  importance. 
We  know  that  we  are  free,  and  we  know  the  ob- 
ligations of  right  and  the  criminality  of  wrong; 


ESSENTIALS  AND  NON-ESSENTIALS     209 

and  that  is  important.  We  do  not  need  any  more 
to  argue,  as  Doctor  Emmons  did,  that  sin  consists 
in  sinning.  Of  course  it  does,  and  in  nothing 
else. 

When  I  say  that  in  my  thinking  I  distinguish 
essentials  from  non-essentials,  in  belief  as  well  as 
in  duty,  and  that  only  duty  is  supremely  essen- 
tial, I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  these  less  essential, 
less  important  beliefs  or  questions  are  not  worth 
serious  thought,  whether  mine  or  others'.  Any- 
thing as  serious  as  religion  is  worth  serious  thought. 
To  one  who  sees  in  the  Bible  much  more  of  revela- 
tion and  much  less  of  evolution  than  I  do,  it  will 
seem  of  much  more  importance  than  to  me  to 
study  the  last  hidden  meaning  there  is  in  that 
revelation,  and  the  last  just  deductions  from  it. 
Such  a  one  will  be  much  more  concerned  than  am 
I  to  imderstand  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity  which 
he  draws  out  of  its  language,  or  the  wonder  of  the 
Atonement,  or  the  divinity  of  Christ,  on  which 
the  Atonement  rests.  Equally  one  who  holds  that 
the  voice  of  the  church  in  its  coimcils  and  creeds 
is  as  binding  as  inspiration  on  our  beliefs,  will 
regard  as  very  important  dogmas  which  I  hold 
to  be  of  little  value  or  none  at  all,  or  even  as  un- 
true. Yet  even  so,  as  Richard  Baxter  teaches 
us,  the  belief  in  the  council,  or  the  church,  or 
the  inspiration  is  of  a  nature  higher  than  the 
belief  in  its  pronouncements,  and  it  is  best  for 
them,  and  for  me,  to  consider  very  carefully  the 


2IO      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

arguments  on  which  that  higher  belief  rests. 
Especially  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  which  in 
its  stricter  form  binds  us  to  believe  as  true  and 
right,  on  the  authority  of  God,  whatever  we  find 
in  our  Scriptures,  requires  at  this  day  renewed 
and  impartial  study. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES 

I  MIGHT,  perhaps,  after  a  study  of  the  evi- 
dence of  theism,  and  a  statement  far  too 
brief  of  the  basis  and  rule  of  duty,  here  end 
my  discussion  of  behef  and  the  reasons  of  beHef, 
for  all  that  is  absolutely  essential  in  religion  and 
morals  has  now  been  reached  if  not  covered. 
For  it  is  incredible  that  a  good  God  would  not 
look  with  favor  on  a  good  man,  who  tried  to  live 
a  life  of  good- will  to  his  fellow  men  and  of  honor 
toward  God;  for  "what  doth  the  Lord  thy  God 
require  of  thee"  beyond  this?  For  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  abundant  good-will  of  God  will  be 
toward  such  a  candid  soul,  even  if  he  knew  no 
more  and  believed  no  more  than  this.  But  some 
fin-ther  discussion  is  needed,  both  because  much 
more  is  believed  and  often  demanded,  and  also 
because  further  religious  faith  has  been  of  great 
service  in  keeping  men  in  the  path  of  duty. 

Passing,  then,  to  the  subject  of  Scripture,  I 
observe  that  the  adherents  of  a  number  of  reli- 
gions have  books,  or  a  collection  of  books,  which 
they  regard  as  sacred  and  authoritative.  Chief 
among   these   religions   are    Hinduism,    with   its 


212      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

Vedas;  Buddhism,  with  its  Tripitaka,  or  Three- 
fold Path;  Zoroastrianism,  with  the  Avesta; 
Hebraism,  with  the  Old  Testament;  Christianity, 
which  adds  the  New  Testament,  while  retaining 
the  Jewish  Scriptures;  and  Mohammedanism, 
with  the  Koran;  the  old  Egyptian  Book  of  the 
Dead,  and  a  long  series  of  Babylonian  hymns, 
and  a  multitude  of  other  holy  books,  that  have 
originated,  some  of  them,  as  late  even  as  our 
own  day,  of  which  our  own  country  has  produced 
its  full  share,  such  as  the  Scriptures  of  Mor- 
monism  and  Christian  Science,  while  Persia  has 
within  a  century  given  us  the  holy  books  of  the 
Babists.  Because  the  religion  in  which  I  have 
been  educated  and  to  which  I  have  adhered  is 
Christianity,  I  am  obliged  with  great  concise- 
ness to  give  some  reasons  why  its  Sacred  Books 
are  superior  to  any  others,  and  what  is  the  nature 
of  the  authority  on  which  they  rest. 

I  can  immediately  dismiss  the  religion  of  the 
Vedas,  for  it  is  polytheistic.  That  excludes  it 
from  comparison;  it  is  plainly  untrue  and  un- 
worthy. 

Buddhism  comes  next.  That  also  must  be 
dismissed  for  a  different  reason.  The  central 
aim  which  it  presents  to  its  adherents  is  that 
they  rid  themselves  of  desire  and  ambition  and 
feeling  and  hope,  since  all  existence  is  bad,  and 
the  ultimate  goal  is  absorption  of  being  in  the 
universal  infinite;    and  this  is  to  be  achieved  by 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        213 

a  series  of  incarnations  of  successive  lives  of 
renunciation  of  pleasures.  It  appears  to  me  to  be 
a  hopeless  and  hateful  religion  which  offers  no 
sort  of  evidence  for  its  incarnations. 

Zoroastrianism  is  a  great  advance  on  either  of 
the  two  religions  of  India.  It  is  so  impressed  with 
the  conflict  of  good  and  evil  in  the  world  that  it 
concludes  there  must  be  two  mighty  spirits,  each 
supreme  in  his  sphere,  the  utterly  good  Ahiira 
Mazda,  and  the  utterly  bad  Ahriman.  These 
two  are  independent  in  their  being,  and  so  not 
infinite  either  in  power  or  wisdom,  for  neither 
can  destroy  the  other,  at  least  during  the  present 
dispensation.  Ahura  Mazda  created  the  world 
and  all  things  in  it  good;  he  also  created  good 
spirits  to  rule  the  imiverse,  what  we  would  call 
angels  and  archangels.  But  whatever  he  created 
that  was  good  was  offset  by  corresponding  evil 
creations  by  Ahriman,  evil  spirits,  storms,  dis- 
eases, wars,  etc.  Fire  was  the  emblem  of  the 
good  god,  and  sacrifices  were  offered  to  him. 
Much  was  made  of  purity  of  life,  but  of  this, 
ritual  purity  was  a  great  part — even  the  earth 
must  be  freed  from  defilement.  There  is  a  judg- 
ment after  death,  and  also  a  final  judgment,  after 
which  those  who  have  been  in  hell  will  endure 
a  limited  further  punishment,  until  all  things  will 
be  restored  by  the  deHverance  of  a  Saviour.  Then 
Ahura  Mazda  will  destroy  Ahriman,  the  good 
spirits  wiU  each  destroy  his  evil  coimterpart,  the 


214      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

icy  mountains  will  be  levelled  to  fertile  plains,  and 
a  new  dispensation  of  righteousness  will  reign  on 
the  earth.  There  is  much  in  this  like  Judaism 
and  Christianity,  but  the  dualistic  element  in  it, 
although  the  power  of  Ahriman  is  finally  over- 
come, together  with  its  excessive  ritualism,  makes 
it,  noble  religion  though  it  is,  far  inferior  to  Juda- 
ism or  Christianity.  Unfortunately  we  do  not 
possess  the  original  Zoroastrian  writings,  only  texts 
of  perhaps  eight  centuries  after  Christ,  and  we  do 
not  certainly  know  whether  in  the  case  of  ele- 
ments common  to  both,  the  Jewish  religion  bor- 
rowed from  the  Persian  or  the  reverse. 

The  Jewish  religion  knows  only  one  supreme 
God,  creator  of  all  things  and  of  all  beings.  He 
is  the  infinitely  wise  and  good  God.  This  is  its 
great  excellence,  and  it  accordingly  insists  on 
justice  and  righteousness.  It  had  in  early  times  a 
full  ritual  of  sacrifices,  but  its  ritualism  mainly 
ended  with  the  destruction  of  the  Temple.  It 
has  in  its  Scriptures  no  clear  doctrine  of  a  future 
life  of  reward  or  punishment,  but  there  are  intima- 
tions of  it  in  its  later  sacred  books,  and  its  Apocry- 
phal books  are  familiar  with  heaven  and  hell  and 
with  the  activities  of  angels  and  devils.  Present- 
day  Judaism  emphasizes  the  existence  of  God  and 
the  bearings  of  duty  on  this  world,  but  pays  little 
attention  to  the  next.  It  retains  the  Mosaic 
legislation,  with  the  observance  of  the  seventh 
day  and  the  feast  days,  but  omits  the  sacrifices. 


THE   HEBREW  vSCRIPTURES        215 

While  at  present  circumcision  is  universally  re- 
tained as  a  distinctive  rite,  the  more  advanced 
keep  nothing  else  except  it  be  theism,  and  their 
religion  is  little  more  than  ethical  culture  added 
to  racial  nationalism.  In  its  stricter  usage  I  can- 
not accept  any  of  its  ritualism  as  belonging  to  a 
pure  religion,  and  in  its  more  radical  form  it  is 
scarcely  a  religion.  Even  so  it  is  a  racial  religion, 
based  on  a  rite. 

Mohammedanism  is,  like  Judaism,  purely  mono- 
theistic, and  is  the  religion  proclaimed  by  a  single 
teacher,  Mohammed,  who  got  his  ideas  from  a 
very  imperfect  apprehension  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity,  with  influences  from  the  neigh- 
boring paganism.  It  is  a  religion  of  force,  con- 
quering by  the  sword,  and  it  favors  polygamy. 
Its  notions  of  the  future  life  are  gross,  and  have 
borrowed  much  from  Zoroastrianism  as  to  heaven 
and  hell  and  the  judgment  of  the  dead.  It  can 
be  dismissed  as  inferior  to  Christianity,  although 
relieved  of  nearly  all  Hebraic  ritualism.  Of  all 
the  world  religions  Christianity  in  its  various 
forms,  or  at  least  in  its  purest  forms  and  in  the 
character  of  its  Sacred  Books  is  easily  the  best. 
It  holds  to  the  personal  and  supreme  God  of 
Judaism;  it  requires  only  the  simplest  ritual  ob- 
servances; it  magnifies  justice  and  holiness,  but 
it  magnifies  more  the  love  of  God  as  Father  of 
his  children  the  world  over,  the  supremacy  of 
love  over  justice;    and  as  Lord  and  Master  it 


2i6      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

presents  Jesus  Christ  who  revealed  God  to  the 
worid;  and  it  promises  heaven  to  the  good  and 
threatens  hell  to  the  wicked.  It  expects  the 
reign  of  righteousness  on  earth  and  a  final  judg- 
ment. It  has  its  various  schools  of  thought  which 
emphasize  or  discredit  various  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctive doctrines,  so  that  it  is  not  possible  to 
give  a  common  creed;  for  what  some  would  hold 
to  be  absolutely  essential,  others  who  equally 
claim  and  are  allowed  the  name  of  Christian 
would  deny. 

Christianity  accepts  the  thirty-nine  Sacred 
Books  of  Judaism  and  adds  to  them  the  twenty- 
seven  books  of  the  New  Testament.  As  I  see  no 
reason  to  accept  the  sacred  books  of  other  reli- 
gions as  having  any  binding  authority  on  me,  it 
will  be  requisite  to  consider  only  what  I  must 
believe  as  to  the  authority  of  these  Jewish  and 
Christian  Scriptures. 

There  has  come  down  to  us  by  tradition  and 
education  a  general  belief  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  as  having  been  given 
to  us  by  revelation  from  God,  or,  at  least,  by 
writers  inspired  from  God  to  give  us  true  in- 
struction as  to  religious  history  and  duty.  As 
to  the  degree  and  nature  of  that  inspiration  Chris- 
tians differ.  The  value  of  a  doctrine  of  inspira- 
tion is  to  assure  to  us  the  truth,  and  so  the  au- 
thority of  the  books  inspired.  The  truth  is  the 
important  thing,  and  the  inspiration  is  supposed 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        217 

to  put  the  seal  upon  the  truth  and  forbid  doubt. 
It  is  the  truth  in  them  that  is  of  value. 

The  question  now  to  be  considered  is  that  of 
the  actual  inspiration  of  Scripture,  or  of  its  nature 
and  extent.  The  old  view  was  that  these  books 
were  so  fully  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost  that 
absolutely  no  error  of  any  sort  is  to  be  found  in 
them.  Few  intelligent  people,  at  least  among 
Protestants,  still  adhere  to  this  inherited  view, 
while  all  Catholics  are  obliged  to  hold  the  strict 
doctrine  of  the  church  on  this  subject.  We  have 
full  right  to  judge  of  the  inspiration  of  our  Scrip- 
tures, and  no  church  has  the  right  to  impose  its 
decision  upon  us.  I  claim  that  right  to  myself. 
The  church  is  made  up  of  men,  and  I  am  a  man 
with  the  rest  of  the  members,  and  with  equal 
right  to  judge.  What  I  must  judge  is  as  to  the 
truth  of  the  statements  made  in  the  books,  and  the 
moral  quality  of  their  contents,  whether  worthy 
of  God.  On  both  of  these  points  I  have  the  right 
to  judge  and  cannot  help  judging  as  soon  as  I 
begin  to  raise  the  question  of  inspiration. 

And  first,  as  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  what  do 
they  claim  for  themselves  as  to  their  inspiration  ? 
I  take  the  thirty-nine  books  in  order,  not  the 
order  of  the  old  Greek  translation  which  our 
English  translations  follow,  and  even  unfor- 
tunately the  Revised  Version,  but  that  which 
has  come  down  to  us  in  the  Hebrew  text.  By 
not  following  it  the  EngHsh  reader  misses   the 


2i8      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

fact  that  the  Old  Testament  is  divided  into  three 
collections,  of  which  the  Law  was  the  first  to  be 
received  as  canonical,  followed  later  by  the 
Prophets,  and  later  still  by  the  Psalms,  or  Hagi- 
ographa. 

Of  these  three  the  Law  embraces  what  are  called 
the  Five  Books  of  Moses.  The  book  of  Genesis 
makes  no  claim  to  have  any  authority  different 
from  any  other  book  of  history,  and  the  same  is 
true  of  the  four  succeeding  books.  We  are  not 
told  who  wrote  them,  and  the  anonymous  author 
(or  authors)  makes  no  claim  to  special  inspira- 
tion requiring  belief.  We  are  left  to  judge  from 
their  contents  whether  they  are  true,  or  how  far 
they  are  true.  We  are  told,  to  be  sure,  that  a 
considerable  part  of  the  contents  of  Exodus, 
Leviticus,  and  Numbers  was  repeated  by  God  to 
Moses  on  Mount  Sinai,  such  as  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments; and  many  a  chapter  begins  with 
the  words,  ''And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses, 
saying."  For  the  contents  of  these  chapters  the 
writer  claims  not  mere  inspiration  but  absolute 
revelation  from  God  who  is  said  to  have  spoken 
to  Moses  face  to  face.  But  by  whom  the  writer 
was  told  this,  or  from  whom  he  quoted  these 
many  passages,  or  whether  the  writer,  living  then 
or  some  centuries  later,  himself  composed  them, 
we  are  not  told.  We  must  judge  of  them  simply 
from  their  contents,  unless  we  are  willing  to  rest 
on  the  authority  of  the  church  or  of  tradition; 


THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        219 

but  that  would  be  renouncing  reason.  We  would 
not  do  that  in  the  case  of  any  other  books. 

Included  in  the  collection  called  ''Prophets'* 
are  Joshua,  Judges,  the  two  Books  of  Samuel, 
and  the  two  of  Kings,  followed  by  Isaiah,  Jere- 
miah, Ezekiel,  and  the  twelve  Minor  Prophets. 
Of  these  the  purely  historical  books,  Joshua, 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings  are  not  attested  as  in 
any  way  differing  from  other  books  of  the  class, 
and  I  can  see  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
subjected  to  the  usual  canons  of  criticism. 

Next  come  the  three  Major  and  the  twelve 
Minor  Prophets.  Of  the  latter  Jonah  forms  an 
exception,  as  it  is  not  properly  a  prophecy  but 
on  the  face  of  it  a  religious  romance,  and  it  bears 
no  attestation,  not  even  the  name  of  its  author. 
It  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  superscription  to 
Isaiah  in  the  first  verse  cannot  cover  the  entire 
book,  for  the  Isaiah  there  credited  with  the  proph- 
ecies lived  before  the  Captivity,  while  the  author 
of  the  later  chapters  lived  after  the  Captivity. 
A  promise  of  return  from  the  Captivity  appears 
in  43  :  5-6  and  60  :  20.  A  date  is  set  in  44  :  28 
and  45  :  11,  where  Cyrus  is  spoken  of  as  then 
reigning,  and  about  to  permit  the  rebuilding  of 
Jerusalem.  In  48  :  20-21  the  Jews  are  bidden  to 
escape  from  Babylon:  "Go  ye  forth  from  Baby- 
lon; flee  ye  from  the  Chaldeans.'*  They  "were 
sold  for  nought,"  they  ''shall  be  redeemed  with- 
out money."    In  64  :  10  Jerusalem  is  said  to  be  a 


220      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

desolation  and  the  temple  burned  with  fire.  This 
was  not  true  in  the  days  of  Isaiah.  The  book 
is  thus  a  compilation,  part  of  it  written  pre- 
sumably by  Isaiah,  and  the  more  valuable  por- 
tion anonymous.  Large  portions  of  the  book, 
whether  from  Isaiah  or  the  later  writer,  are  put 
in  the  mouth  of  God  as  his  declarations;  whether 
truly  and  historically  his  words  or  so  attributed 
to  him  dramatically,  we  are  to  judge.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  here  we  have  come  into  a  new  field  of 
literary  activity,  that  of  the  prophetic  function, 
which  needs  consideration.  Jeremiah  is  a  book 
of  oracles,  ''The  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  me," 
or,  ''The  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  Jeremiah," 
or  "Thus  saith  the  Lord."  The  conditions  are 
the  same  in  Ezekiel,  with  a  richer  development 
of  visions. 

When  we  come  to  the  Minor  Prophets,  omit- 
ting Jonah,  the  conditions  are  still  much  the 
same.  They  are  all  declarations  of  the  divine 
will,  of  hope  or  doom,  interspersed  with  visions. 
The  third  chapter  of  Habakkuk  is  a  late  psalm, 
by  way  of  exception,  which  has  been  attached  to 
the  oracles. 

The  third  division  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
the  last  to  be  incorporated  into  the  Jewish  canon, 
is  the  Hagiographa,  and  consists  of  the  Psalms, 
Proverbs,  Job,  Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamenta- 
tions, Ecclesiastes,  Esther,  Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehe- 
miah,  and  First  and  Second  Chronicles.    Of  these 


THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        221 

not  one  makes  any  claim  for  special  inspiration 
except  the  latter  half  of  Daniel.  The  first  half  is 
a  collection  of  religious  stories  followed  by  a  dream 
and  visions  granted  to  Daniel,  a  Jew  of  whom  we 
have  no  historical  knowledge  beyond  this  book 
itself.  As  it  is  now  generally  admitted  even  by 
conservative  scholars  that  the  Book  of  Daniel  was 
not  written  before  the  time  of  Antiochus  Epiph- 
anes,  that  is,  three  centuries  after  the  times  of  the 
Daniel  described  in  this  book,  and  as  it  was  a 
common  convention  at  this  period  to  put  one's 
teachings  into  the  mouth  of  some  old  authority, 
just  as  Plato  and  Cicero  did  in  Greece  and  Rome, 
the  ascription  of  the  book  to  Daniel  as  a  prophet 
falls  away;  and  indeed  the  authors  of  the  Jewish 
canon  did  not  count  him  a  prophet,  nor  did  they 
put  this  book  with  those  of  the  prophets,  but  into 
the  latest  collection.  The  earlier  chapters  appear 
to  be,  like  Ruth  and  Esther,  which  also  belong 
to  the  Hagiographa,  edifying  patriotic  or  religious 
stories  rather  than  to  be  accepted  as  histories; 
while  the  last  chapters  of  Daniel  belong  to  a  large 
class  of  eschatological  books  anticipating  the  com- 
ing reign  of  righteousness  in  which  the  writers 
of  the  class  delighted,  and  of  which  Daniel  is  the 
best,  and  the  only  one  to  be  received  into  the 
final  Jewish  canon. 

Ezra,  Nehemiah,  and  Chronicles  are  purely  his- 
torical and  make  no  special  claim  to  authority 
beyond   their  internal  evidence.     The  Book  of 


222      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Psalms  is  made  up  of  five  separate  books,  probably 
of  different  dates  of  collection,  and  were  used  for 
worship  in  the  Second  Temple.  Some  are  credited 
to  their  supposed  authors  or  to  collections,  and 
others  are  anonymous.  None  of  them  make  any 
more  claim  to  superior  inspiration  than  do  the 
hymns  of  the  Wesleys.  Equally  Proverbs  is  made 
up  of  various  collections  of  wise  and  popular  say- 
ings, and,  so  far  as  their  text  goes,  are  to  be 
judged  by  their  intrinsic  value.  The  next  book 
is  Job,  a  drama  enclosed  in  a  story.  It  is  anony- 
mous, religious,  doubtfully  of  Hebrew  origin,  and 
makes  no  claim  to  be  treated  with  any  more 
reverence  than  its  contents  require.  It  is  a  noble 
work,  the  story  in  prose  and  the  dialogue  in  poetry. 
The  Song  of  Songs  is  composed  of  nuptial  songs, 
is  in  no  sense  religious,  and  can  be  made  religious 
only  by  such  arbitrary  interpretation  as  is  to  be 
seen  in  the  titles  of  the  chapters  in  King  James's 
Version.  Lamentations  is  a  series  of  acrostic 
poems  bewailing  Jerusalem,  the  verses  beginning 
with  the  successive  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and 
it  shows  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  judged 
like  other  such  poetry.  Ecclesiastes  is  a  late  book 
the  writer  of  which  has  put  his  philosophy  into 
the  mouth  of  Solomon,  as  the  writer  of  Daniel 
put  his  apocalypses  into  the  mouth  of  Daniel. 
No  inspiration  is  claimed  for  it. 

We  thus  find  that  the  Old  Testament,  the  Bible 
of  the  Jews,  claims  revelation  from  God  for  the 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        223 

larger  parts  of  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers, 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  eleven  Minor 
Prophets,  while  no  claim  is  made  for  the  writers 
of  the  other  books  which  make  up  the  three 
Jewish  collections  of  writings  selected  by  the 
rabbis  of  two  centuries  before  and  nearly  a  cen- 
tury after  the  birth  of  Christ  from  their  general 
literature  to  be  held  as  sacred.  This  requires  me 
briefly  to  consider  the  validity  of  the  claims  of 
those  writers  who  speak  as  the  mouthpieces  of 
God. 

It  is  as  nearly  certain  as  any  fact  relating  to 
so  ancient  a  period  can  be,  that  the  so-called  Five 
Books  of  Moses  were  not  written  by  Moses.  It 
is  nowhere  claimed  in  these  books  that  he  wrote 
them  and  they  tell  us  that  after  him  there  arose 
no  prophet  like  him,  and  the  story  is  told  of  his 
death.  Of  course,  writing  was  well  known  at  the 
age  of  Moses,  but  in  the  Egyptian  or  Babylonian, 
not  in  the  Hebrew  letters  or  language.  No  such 
fragment  of  that  age  has  been  found.  Of  course, 
we  can  imagine  the  books  written  in  Egyptian 
or  Babylonian  and  translated  into  Hebrew  five 
hundred  years  later,  but  that  is  very  improbable. 
The  consensus  of  scholarship  is  that  they  were 
composed  centuries  after  the  death  of  Moses,  and 
that  the  author  made  such  use  of  materials  as  he 
could  and  by  a  perfectly  legitimate  literary  con- 
vention of  his  day  put  into  the  mouth  of  Moses 
or  of  Balaam  and  into  the  mouth  of  the  Lord 


2  24      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  teachings  which  he  believed  to  represent  the 
religious  history  of  Israel  and  the  worship  of 
Jehovah.  In  a  way  both  historical  and  dramatic 
he  has  done  what  Milton  did  when  in  a  more  ven- 
turesome way  he  enters  the  council-chamber  of 
Jehovah,  and  in  the  third  book  of  "Paradise  Lost'* 
reports  the  long  dialogue  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  These  Five  Books  of  Moses  are  of  im- 
mense value  for  history  and  religion,  but  I  cannot 
see  that  they  carry  evidence  of  possessing  the 
binding  authority  of  inspiration. 

The  case  with  the  prophetical  books  is  quite 
different  from  that  with  the  Pentateuch.  Here 
we  have  the  definite  claim  of  inspiration  from  the 
writers  themselves.  Prophets  were  numerous  in 
those  days,  old  prophets,  young  prophets,  schools 
of  the  prophets  in  training  as  under  Elisha,  wan- 
dering dervish  prophets,  as  in  the  day  of  Saul; 
and  there  were  rival  prophets  who  prophesied 
against  each  other,  each,  for  aught  we  can  see, 
impressed  with  the  truth  of  his  message,  declaring 
it  had  been  given  him  from  Jehovah.  An  in- 
structive story  we  have  in  the  twenty-seventh 
and  twenty-eighth  chapters  of  Jeremiah. 

Jeremiah  advocated  political  submission  to 
Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  who  had  made 
a  raid  on  Jerusalem  and  carried  away  captives 
and  holy  vessels  from  the  temple.  His  advice 
was  politic,  but  did  not  seem  patriotic.  He 
claimed  an  oracle  from  the  Lord,  but  there  were 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        225 

other  prophets  who  also  claimed  to  speak  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  and  who  assured  King  Zede- 
kiah  of  speedy  deliverance  and  the  return  of  the 
sacred  vessels.  To  impress  his  wiser  counsel  Jere- 
miah put  a  wooden  yoke  about  his  neck,  and 
went  to  the  king  and  his  princes  and  told  them, 
from  the  Lord,  that  they  must  submit  to  the 
yoke  of  Nebuchadnezzar  if  they  wished  peace. 
But  the  prophet  Hananiah  entered  the  temple  and 
proclaimed : 

Thus  said  Jehovah  of  Hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  I  have 
broke  the  yoke  of  the  king  of  Babylon.  Within  two  years 
I  will  restore  to  this  place  all  the  vessels  of  the  house  of 
Jehovah  w^hich  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  took 
from  this  place  and  carried  to  Babylon;  and  Jechoniah, 
son  of  Jehoiakim,  king  of  Judah,  and  all  the  captivity  of 
Judah  that  went  to  Babylon  I  will  bring  back  to  this 
place  said  Jehovah,  for  I  will  break  the  yoke  of  the  king 
of  Babylon. 

Jeremiah  listened  and  only  said  he  wished  it 
might  be  so,  but  that  the  event  would  prove 
which  had  spoken  truth.  Then  Hananiah  took 
the  yoke  off  from  Jeremiah's  neck  and  said: 
''Thus  saith  Jehovah,  So  will  I  break  the  yoke 
of  Nebuchadnezzar  off  the  necks  of  all  these  na- 
tions within  the  space  of  two  years."  Jeremiah 
was  silent  for  a  day  or  two,  and  then  returned 
with  a  message  from  Jehovah  declaring  that  in- 
stead of  a  yoke  of  wood  a  yoke  of  iron  should  be 


2  26      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

put  on  the  necks  of  these  nations,  and  that  Hana- 
niah  should  die  within  a  year. 

Apparently  prophet  was  a  general  term,  profes- 
sionally allowed  to  any  one  who  claimed  it,  and 
Jeremiah  and  Hananiah  were  equally  known  as 
prophets  of  Jehovah;  and  it  would  seem  they 
equally  believed  they  were  speaking  the  will  of 
God.  The  prophetic  function  was  not  peculiar  to 
Palestine,  for  all  the  nations  around  had  the  same 
office  under  different  names,  given  to  diviners  and 
interpreters  of  dreams  and  ministers  of  oracles. 
Even  Cicero  was  an  augur. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  the  select  line  of  prophets 
received  into  the  Jewish  canon  were  the  great 
moral  and  religious  teachers  of  ancient  Israel. 
They  were  infused  with  the  sense  of  right  and  duty, 
and  with  a  true  patriotism  which  was  held  sub- 
ordinate to  their  passionate  loyalty  to  Israel's 
God.  Their  supreme  religious  fervor  bore  them 
much  further  than  is  expressed  in  the  noble  lines 
of  John  Quincy  Adams : 

"  And  say  not  thou,  My  country  right  or  wrong, 
Nor  shed  thy  blood  in  an  unhallowed  cause  .  .  . 
But  when  thy  country  tramples  on  the  right 
Furl  up  her  banner  and  avert  thy  sight"; 

for  they  never  wearied  to  beseech  the  people  to 
return  to  their  God,  and  they  denounced  his  sure 
judgments  on  refusal  to  obey  their  warnings. 
I  take  it  that  a  prophet  was  one  who  claimed 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        227 

to  announce  the  will  of  God  to  the  king,  the 
priests,  and  the  people.  He  was,  with  scarce  an 
exception,  a  man  of  special  education,  of  broad 
knowledge  of  affairs,  with  the  attitude  of  a  states- 
man competent  to  instruct  the  court.  More  than 
this,  he  was  an  enthusiast,  and  he  believed  that 
what  he  said  was  the  will  of  God.  The  prophets 
had  the  genius  of  poets,  whether  they  wrote  in 
prose  or  verse.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  if  they 
delivered  their  "burdens"  and  oracles  orally, 
they  also  wrote  them  down  at  their  leisure,  in 
such  a  literary  style  and  with  such  passion  that 
their  writings  were  copied  and  preserved.  They 
were  prophets  not  because  they  foretold  things, 
but  because  they  proclaimed  things  on  the  au- 
thority of  God  Almighty;  and  their  prophecies 
were  all  of  judgments  on  Israel  if  she  did  not 
repent,  and  of  the  visitations  of  God's  wrath  on 
the  nations  that  had  oppressed  Israel. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  these  prophets  believed 
that  they  were  speaking  the  will  of  God;  but  not 
that  they  believed  they  were  repeating  God's 
words  dictated  to  them.  Yet  they  believed  it  in 
a  higher  sense  than  that  in  which  some  earnest 
and  passionate  preacher,  some  Savonarola  or 
Luther,  now  proclaims  and  foretells;  some  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  who  says:  ''We  must  all  hang 
together,  or  we  shall  assuredly  all  hang  sepa- 
rately"; or  some  Lincoln,  who  trembles  when 
he   remembers   that    God   is   just.      They   were 


2  28      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

enthusiasts.  They  Hved  in  an  age  when  God 
seemed  very  near  to  man,  when  many  a  man  saw 
visions  and  felt,  or  thought  he  felt,  the  very  im- 
pulse of  God  in  his  soul.  To  them  a  strong  con- 
viction or  a  strong  passion  was  the  voice  of  God; 
and  why  may  it  not  have  been,  and  why  may  it 
not  be  now  his  voice  when  we  feel  the  call  of 
duty  ?  They  were  human ;  they  could  err.  They 
could  speak  only  up  to  their  conviction  or  their 
knowledge,  some  better  inspired,  some  less  so: 

"  For  every  fiery  prophet  of  old  times, 
And  all  the  sacred  madness  of  the  bard, 
When  God  made  music  through  them,  could  but  speak 
His  music  by  the  framework  and  the  cord"; 

and  as  they  felt  it  they  have  spoken  truth. 

This  does  not  exclude  literary  conventions,  of 
the  prophets'  own  composition,  given  as  illustra- 
tions, parables,  visions,  put  into  the  mouth  of 
God.  There  is  a  multitude  of  threats  of  ven- 
geance on  other  nations  that  we  cannot  approve, 
although  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jehovah,  as 
venomous  as  those  in  the  imprecatory  psalms, 
of  which  Isaac  Watts  says  in  his  notes  on  his 
metrical  versions:  ''I  have  omitted  the  dreadful 
imprecations  on  his  enemies"  (Psalm  69);  and 
"Rejoicing  in  the  destruction  of  our  personal 
enemies  is  not  so  evangelical  a  practise ;  therefore 
I  have  given  the  eleventh  verse  of  this  psalm  an- 
other turn"  (Psalm  92);  and  Psalm  137  he  passes 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        229 

by  entirely,  with  other  passages  as  not  *'so  well 
suited  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel."  No  one  can 
believe  that  God  inspired  the  sadly  human  im- 
precation: ''Happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh  and 
dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the  stones";  and 
there  are  many  whole  chapters  of  such  curses  in 
the  prophets  which  cannot  be  read  with  edifica- 
tion because  they  are  unchristian,  and  which  I 
would  never  wish  to  translate  for  the  instruction 
of  Buddhists  or  Confucianists.  I  do  not  find  the 
imprecations  on  Moab  and  Ammon  in  Jeremiah, 
or  those  on  the  surrounding  nations  in  the  two 
first  chapters  of  Amos,  helpful  to  devotion  when 
read  in  either  public  or  family  worship;  and  I 
believe  these  ''fiery  prophets  of  old  time,"  made 
their  faulty  music  by  the  rude  "framework  and 
the  cord,"  and  not  by  the  touch  of  the  finger  and 
the  loving  heart  of  the  All-Father.  They  were 
inspired  in  a  measure,  but  I  cannot  see  that  it 
was  by  any  such  compelling  influence  as  saved 
them  from  error,  whether  historical,  scientific, 
ethical,  or  religious.  Always  our  best  reason  and 
best  sense  of  right,  that  which  we  have  learned 
from  a  higher  teacher  since  the  days  of  those 
Hebrew  prophets,  must  judge  them,  but  most 
reverently,  most  gratefully,  as  having  been  the 
highest  teachers  the  world  had  known,  through 
whom  the  knowledge  of  the  one  true  God  has 
come  down  to  us;  and  yet  they,  without  us, 
could  not  be  made  perfect.    Too  often  they  looked 


230      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

on  Jehovah  as  the  special  Hebrew  God,  even  as 
Naomi  bade  her  daughters-in-law  go  back  to 
serve  the  god  of  Moab.  While  a  late  evangelical 
prophet  could  anticipate  the  time  when  all  the 
world  should  worship  Israel's  God,  yet  not  in 
the  whole  Jewish  Scriptures  is  there  to  be  found 
a  single  command  to  seek  the  conversion  of  for- 
eign nations. 

The  present  is  not  a  treatise  on  inspiration.  I 
am  merely  trying  in  the  most  succinct  way  to 
tell  what  I  believe  and  why  I  believe  it.  And  I 
do  not  find  in  the  Old  Testament  itself  any  evi- 
dence of  any  such  inspiration  as  forbids  us  to 
judge  it,  and  to  accept  or  decline  its  teachings 
on  any  subject.  Most  of  it  claims  no  such  in- 
spiration. We  would  never  imagine  it  authorita- 
tively inspired  if  we  had  not  inherited  the  belief, 
first  from  the  Jews  of  a  century  or  two  before 
Christ,  and  then  from  the  writers  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  three  books  of  the  Pentateuch 
which  tell  us  what  God  said  to  Moses  are  books 
of  history,  and  we  must  judge  of  them  by  the 
same  canons  as  we  judge  of  the  speeches  given 
us  by  Thucydides  as  spoken  by  other  leaders. 
For  myself,  I  believe  that  these  books  were 
written  long  after  the  time  of  Moses  and  that 
they  are  not  literally  historical.  The  prophetic 
books  are  splendid  works  of  inspiration,  but  not 
of  such  inspiration  as  the  previous  Christian  gen- 
erations have  held  them  to  be.    The  writers  be- 


THE   HEBREW  SCRIPTURES        231 

lieved  themselves  to  be  speaking  the  will  of  God, 
and  they  wrote  and  spoke  with  authority.  They 
promised  good  for  the  good  and  threatened  evil 
for  the  evil,  and  also  for  the  enemies  of  their  na- 
tion. They  spoke  the  highest  utterance  of  their 
times,  not  of  all  times.  Their  teachings  were  not 
perfect,  but  they  came  as  near  perfection  as 
human  faculties  and  human  conscience  and  faith 
could  then  attain.  Their  writings  deserve  to 
have  been  the  Bible  of  the  Hebrew  people,  but 
there  was  something  better  to  follow. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES 

WHEN  the  twenty-seven  books  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures  were  written  there 
was  no  question  among  the  Jews  that 
the  thirty-nine  books  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures 
were  fully,  and,  we  may  say,  verbally,  inspired. 
The  writers  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  were  all 
Jews,  and  they  accepted  unquestioningly  this 
belief.  In  Gal.  3  :  i6  Paul  bases  an  argument 
on  the  use  of  the  singular,  ''seed,"  instead  of 
the  plural,  "seeds,"  depending  with  rabbinic 
nicety  on  the  verbal  exactness  of  the  text,  which 
gives  the  promise  to  Abraham.  The  writers  of 
the  New  Testament  based  their  claims  for  the 
new  faith  on  their  exegesis  of  the  commonly  ac- 
cepted Hebrew  Scriptures  which  bore  full  divine 
authority,  and  they  tried  thus  to  show  that  Jesus 
was  the  promised  Messiah.  But  no  such  inspira- 
tion do  they  claim  for  their  own  writings,  simply 
the  authority  of  truth.  That  satisfied  the  Apos- 
tolic Church. 

The  three  Synoptic  Gospels,  Matthew,  Mark, 
and  Luke,  are  books  of  biography.  They  are  the 
remains  of  a  number  of  such  books  recording  the 

232 


THE   CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES     233 

sayings  and  works  of  Jesus,  and  they  were  pre- 
served no  doubt  because  they  were  the  most 
complete  and  valuable  of  all  that  were  current. 
Luke  tells  us  in  the  first  verse  of  his  Gospel  that 
many  such  booklets  were  current  in  the  churches, 
but  all  of  them  have  perished  except  these  three 
Gospels.  One  of  them,  indeed  more  than  one, 
Luke  certainly  used,  for  much  of  his  material  is 
common  to  Matthew  and  Mark.  Matthew's 
Gospel  is  also  composite,  and  Mark's  seems  to  be 
the  most  nearly  original  of  the  three.  The  writers 
make  no  claims  to  have  possessed  in  the  writing 
of  them  anything  more  than  human  wisdom. 
For  all  they  have  to  say  we  have  the  right  to  use 
our  judgment  in  accepting  their  statements  as 
true.  But  that  their  object  is  to  give  substan- 
tially a  true  story  of  the  life  and  teachings  and 
death  of  Jesus  is  plainly  evident. 

This  is  not  so  clear  as  to  the  Gospel  given  to 
us  under  the  name  of  John.  No  author's  name  is 
assigned  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  any  more  than  to 
those  of  Matthew  and  Mark,  but  an  old  tradi- 
tion assigns  it  to  the  Apostle  John;  and  the  last 
chapter,  which  is  an  appendix  apparently  by  an- 
other writer,  assigns  it  to  him.  It  may  be  that 
John  wrote  it  in  his  old  age,  or,  quite  as  likely, 
one  of  John's  younger  disciples  composed  it,  in- 
corporating facts  and  reminiscences  which  he  had 
received  from  his  master. 

The  latter  conjecture  seems  more  probable  to 


234      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

me,  for  it  seems  evident  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  the  writer  to  give,  as  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  the 
substance  of  the  Christian  teaching,  and  not  to 
gather  up  from  tradition  or  memory  our  Lord's 
actual  and  exact  addresses  and  prayers.  The 
book  is  dramatic  rather  than  biographic.  Thus 
in  John  7  :  4-26  is  given  the  prolonged  conversa- 
tion of  Jesus  with  the  woman  of  Samaria,  when 
no  one  of  the  disciples  was  present.  Similarly 
we  have  in  the  third  chapter  the  conversation  of 
Jesus  with  Nicodemus  at  a  secret  meeting,  the 
writer's  purpose  being  in  both  cases  to  present 
Jesus  as  the  Christ.  It  was  his  plan  to  put  in  an 
historical  setting  the  author's  idea  of  the  essen- 
tial principles  of  the  Christian  faith  as  they  had 
been  developed  in  the  church  at  the  time  of  his 
writing.  Whether  John  wrote  it  in  his  old  age, 
or  John  the  Presbyter,  as  some  have  thought,  or 
some  other  writer,  is  to  me  of  no  importance,  not 
worth  discussing  here,  and  may  be  left  to  the 
schools  for  study  or  conjecture.  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  bears  to  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  very  much  the  same  relation  as  do  the 
Dialogues  of  Plato,  in  which  the  teaching  is  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  to  the  actual  sayings 
of  Socrates  as  recorded  by  Xenophon  in  his 
"Memorabilia." 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  such  a  composi- 
tion with  language  put  into  the  mouth  of  an 
honored  leader  would  be  regarded  in  those  days 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES      235 

as  ethically  wrong  or  was  meant  to  deceive.  We 
know  that  sixty  books  were  written  by  the  dis- 
ciples of  Pythagoras  and  ascribed  to  him  with 
the  thought  of  honoring  him;  and  a  multitude 
of  Jewish  books,  like  the  Book  of  Daniel  and  the 
Book  of  Enoch,  and  a  larger  number  of  Christian 
Gospels  and  other  writings  ascribed  to  the  Apostles 
have  come  down  to  us,  and  the  Christian  fathers 
were  honored  in  the  same  way.  When  a  Greek 
or  Latin  historian  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  gen- 
eral a  rousing  address  to  his  soldiers  before  going 
into  battle,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  his- 
torian had  before  him  a  parchment  copy  of  the 
speech,  or,  indeed,  that  any  speech  was  made. 
It  is  simply  the  historian's  way  of  indicating  what 
he  believed  to  be  the  purpose  of  the  general  in 
joining  battle.  Yet  a  subsequent  writer,  or  an 
uncritical  reader,  may  make  the  mistake  of  sup- 
posing that  the  author's  literary  device  really 
represented  the  genuine  words  of  the  hero  of  the 
history.  Such  has  been  the  case  with  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  After  its  great  value  made  it  read  in  the 
churches  and  received  into  the  canon,  it  came  to 
be  believed — and  the  tradition  has  come  down 
to  us — that  the  very  words  of  Jesus  in  his  dis- 
courses and  their  historical  setting  were  truly  and 
miraculously  reported  and  have  been  preserved 
to  us.  For  any  such  conclusion  there  is  no  evi- 
dence and  no  claim  in  the  Gospel  itself. 

It  is  incredible  to  me  that  these  discourses  at- 


236      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

tributed  to  Jesus  were  really  uttered  by  him. 
They  are  quite  unlike  the  simple,  concrete  say- 
ings of  Jesus  given  in  the  three  other  Gospels, 
and  which  were  written  down  long  before  the 
composition  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  is  not 
simply  the  historical  discrepancies  which  affect 
my  conclusion,  but  the.  substance  of  the  dis- 
courses, which  represent  a  later  stage  in  the 
development  of  Christianity.  The  tone  is  utterly 
different.  The  three  Gospels  tell  a  plain  story. 
Jesus  does  miracles  of  healing,  and  gives  religious 
teaching  about  the  Father,  and  righteousness  and 
mercy,  but  publicly  makes  no  claims  to  be  the 
Messiah.  That  comes  but  seldom,  and  then 
privately  with  his  disciples,  and  he  bids  them 
tell  no  man.  Even  the  marvellous  judgment 
scene  of  the  last  day  when  he  shall  sit  on  the 
throne  of  his  glory,  and  that  other  assurance 
that  his  disciples  shall  sit  on  twelve  thrones,  are 
in  private.  But  it  is  different  in  John's  Gospel. 
The  writer  says  in  his  conclusion,  before  the 
Appendix,  that  he  wrote  it  ''that  ye  may  believe 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that 
believing  ye  may  have  life  in  his  name."  Ac- 
cordingly every  incident  and  address  is  chosen 
and  told  so  as  to  emphasize  publicly  as  well  as 
privately  his  claim  to  the  Messiahship.  He  tells 
Nicodemus  that  he  is  "the  only  begotten  Son 
of  God."  He  tells  the  woman  of  Samaria  that 
he  is  the  Christ,  and  she  tells  the  Samaritans, 


THE  CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES     237 

many  of  whom  believe,  after  he  had  been  with 
them  two  days,  that  he  was  "indeed  the  Saviour 
of  the  world."  After  the  cure  on  the  Sabbath  at 
the  Pool  of  Bethesda  he  tells  the  Jews  that  he  is, 
*'the  Son  of  God"  and  that  the  dead  shall  hear 
his  voice  and  come  out  of  the  tombs  imto  the 
resurrection  of  judgment.  Again  in  the  synagogue 
at  Capernaum  he  told  the  people  that  his  flesh 
was  for  the  life  of  the  world,  and  that  he  would 
at  the  last  day  raise  up  those  that  believed  in 
him.  And  so  it  goes  through  the  whole  Gospel: 
Jesus  is  all  the  time  talking  about  himself  and 
emphasizing  his  claims,  except  in  the  imauthentic 
account  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  which 
sounds  like  one  of  the  gracious  stories  lost  out 
of  the  Gospel  of  Luke.  There  are  no  characteristic 
parables,  only  long  addresses. 

The  explanation  of  the  difference  in  the  de- 
scription of  Jesus  given  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
and  that  of  John  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
it  represents  a  later  stage  in  the  development  of 
the  church,  and  that  it  was  written  to  emphasize 
that  faith  in  Jesus  as  Christ  and  Saviour  which 
he  taught  privately  in  the  chamber  and  not  on 
the  housetop.  When  it  was  written  the  church 
had  felt  the  transforming  influence  of  Paul,  of 
which  we  find  no  trace  in  the  three  Gospels,  but 
of  which  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  full.  I  think  of 
Paul  as  brought,  as  suddenly  as  by  a  miracle,  to 
the  conviction  that  Jesus  was  the  promised  Mes- 


238      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

siah.  But  that  contradicted  all  the  BibHcal  teach- 
ing he  had  received,  and  the  permanent  authority, 
he  saw,  though  the  other  Apostles  did  not  im- 
mediately see  it,  of  the  Mosaic  Law.  So  he 
searched  the  Scriptures  to  learn  where  his  error 
had  lain.  He  clearly  saw  that  the  acceptance  of 
Jesus  as  Messiah  and  King  involved  a  purely 
spiritual  religion,  with  the  passing  away  of  the 
Mosaic  ritual  and  ordinances,  and  the  victory  of 
Jesus  over  Moses.  How  could  this  be  ?  He  found 
the  key  to  the  problem  in  two  passages,  one  in 
Genesis,  that  "Abraham  believed  God  and  it  was 
counted  to  him  for  righteousness,''  that  is,  ior  justi- 
fication; the  other  in  Habakkuk,  where  he  found 
the  same  two  words,  that  ''the  just  shall  live  by 
his  faith,''  that  is,  belief.  The  two  passages  agree, 
as  two  witnesses,  that  one  is  justified  by  his  belief 
in  God,  and  if  so  not  by  any  formal  rites.  The 
first  passage  shows  that  a  good  man,  yet  uncir- 
cumcised,  living  centuries  before  the  Mosaic  Law, 
could  be  saved  by  his  faith  in  God;  and  the 
second  showed  that  faith  was  equally  efficacious 
after  the  promulgation  of  that  law.  So  he  found 
Bible  authority  for  discarding  the  saving  value  of 
the  law  of  ritual  service.  Thus  faith  was  to  him 
the  condition  of  salvation ;  and  by  faith  he  meant 
not  intellectual  belief  in  a  system  of  doctrine,  but 
the  opposite  of  what  he  called  the  works  of  the 
law,  of  sacrifices,  fastings,  circumcision,  and  other 
' '  bodily  exercises ' '  which  ' '  profit  nothing . ' '    That 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES      239 

is,  faith  was  heart  religion,  was  the  acceptance 
of  God  as  the  loving  Father,  obedience  to  him 
and  fellowship  with  Jesus  Christ  who  had  died 
and  risen  again  as  the  Messiah. 

Thus  faith,  with  Paul,  meant  faith  in  Jesus  as 
the  Christ.  But  this  is  what  we  do  not  find  in 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  as  the  meaning  of  jaith  and 
believe  (the  same  words  in  Greek).  In  these  Gos- 
pels those  who  would  be  healed  must  ''believe" 
that  he  can  cure  them;  if  the  disciples  ''believe" 
they  can  remove  mountains  they  can  do  it;  and 
Jesus  bids  the  multitude  "believe"  in  his  good 
news.  But  in  John's  Gospel  the  word  believe  ap- 
pears more  than  twice  as  many  times  as  in  the 
three  other  Gospels  together;  and  now  it  is  to 
believe  on  Jesus,  an  expression  belonging  to  Paul 
and  not  found  in  the  Synoptics. 

Thus  the  purpose  given  for  writing  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  that  its  readers  might  believe  that  Jesus 
is  the  Christ,  is  borne  out  in  its  composition.  It 
is  the  latest  of  the  Gospels  to  be  received  into 
the  canon,  while  a  number  of  others  were  written, 
had  some  currency,  but  were  finally  rejected.  It 
is  rich  in  spiritual  inspiration,  a  precious  treasure, 
but  it  makes  no  claims  for  itself  to  be  received  as 
a  book  inspired  in  any  peculiar  way.  The  speeches 
put  into  the  mouth  of  our  Lord  give  the  spirit  of 
his  Gospel,  but  cannot  be  real  reports. 

The  Book  of  Acts  is  a  book  of  church  history, 
but  it  makes  no  claim  to  be  judged  in  any  way 


240      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

differently  from  any  other  book  of  history;  and, 
on  the  face  of  it,  it  is  to  be  valued  by  what  it  is 
found  to  be  worth,  and  that  value  is  immense. 

Paul  in  his  Epistles  speaks  with  a  real  author- 
ity, but  it  is  the  authority  of  an  Apostle  rather 
than  of  one  guided  in  all  he  may  write  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God.  In  most  of  his  Epistles  he 
describes  himself  as  an  Apostle,  yet  not  com- 
missioned like  the  other  Apostles  who  had  been 
disciples  of  the  Lord,  for  he  had  never  seen  Jesus 
in  the  flesh,  but  only  in  a  vision;  yet  his  apostle- 
ship,  he  claimed,  was  as  direct  as  theirs  and  had 
been  more  fruitful.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  the 
very  permanence  of  the  Christian  Church,  as 
well  as  the  definition  of  its  faith,  depended  on 
Paul.  But  for  his  clear  exposition  of  its  meaning 
and  its  universality  it  might  have  perished  as  a 
mere  Jewish  sect,  like  that  of  the  Ebionites. 
Paul  had  the  clear  vision  to  see  what  was  in- 
volved in  the  spirituality  of  Christ's  teachings, 
that  in  Christ  the  Gentile  is  as  good  as  the  Jew, 
and  that  not  one  ritual  observance,  not  even  the 
Sabbath,  was  retained  as  of  obligation.  Jesus, 
as  his  teachings  appear  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
never  broke  the  Mosaic  Law.  He  observed  its 
commands.  He  said  that  he  who  should  break 
one  of  them  would  be  least  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven;  that  tithes  of  mint,  anise,  and  cummin 
should  be  paid.  He  kept  the  Sabbath,  but  he 
condemned,  out  of  the  Law,  the  stringency  which 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES     241 

forbade  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath,  and  the 
hypocrisy  which  kept  the  letter  but  not  the 
spirit,  and  added  burdensome  traditions  and  in- 
terpretations; and  he  strengthened  the  Law,  not 
by  adding  to  its  letter  but  by  emphasizing  its 
spirit.  He  preached  only  to  his  own  people,  the 
lost  sheep  of  Israel;  but  it  is  the  Gospel  of  John 
which,  following  Paul,  tells  us  that  neither  in 
the  Samaritan  mountain  nor  in  Jerusalem  does 
God  choose  to  be  worshipped  any  more  than  in 
any  humble  heart. 

Paul  was  the  chief  of  Apostles,  and  yet  he  did 
not  claim  to  speak  with  any  such  authority  as  he 
allowed  to  the  Old  Testament.  In  writing  to  the 
Romans  he  recognizes  that  they  are  "filled  with 
all  knowledge,"  and  yet  he  venttires  to  admonish 
them,  not  to  command  them,  simply  because  of 
the  grace  given  unto  him  ''to  be  a  minister  of 
Christ  Jesus  imto  the  Gentiles."  He  ''beseeches," 
not  commands,  the  quarrelsome  Corinthians  to 
put  aside  their  contentions;  and  again,  "not  that 
we  have  lordship  over  your  faith."  He  gives  his 
rebukes  positively  yet  courteously,  and  on  some 
questions  on  marriage  he  gives  his  opinions  with 
reserve,  or  thinks  he  has  the  spirit  of  God,  while 
on  other  matters  he  speaks  positively,  as  their 
teacher  and  Apostle.  He  rebukes  the  Galatians 
sharply  for  their  Judaizing  but  the  most  he  says 
of  his  own  authority  is  that  he  received  his  Gos- 
pel from  God.      More  positive  "command  "  does 


242      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Paul  give  to  the  Thessalonians  that  they  with- 
draw from  any  that  walk  disorderly.  He  tells 
Timothy  that  the  sacred  writings  which  he  had 
learned  from  his  infancy,  meaning  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,  are  "inspired  of  God,"  but  has  nothing 
to  say  of  any  Christian  writings,  his  own  or  any 
other.  Indeed,  nowhere  does  he  claim  the  same 
authority  which  he  allows  to  the  Old  Testament. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  from  an  un- 
known author,  not  from  Paul.  It  is  most  clear 
in  its  accepted  doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Old  Testament,  saying  in  the  first  verse  that  God 
had  "spoken  unto  the  fathers  in  the  prophets  in 
divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners";  and  the 
whole  argument  of  the  superiority  of  the  Chris- 
tian dispensation  to  the  Jewish  people  is  based 
on  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  it 
quotes  in  the  words:  "The  Holy  Ghost  also 
beareth  witness  to  us";  but  the  writer  depends 
on  such  authority  and  not  on  personal  inspira- 
tion for  his  own  claim  to  acceptance. 

No  more  do  the  shorter  Epistles  of  James, 
Peter,  John,  and  Jude  make  any  claim  to  divine 
inspiration.  They  simply  exhort  as  any  teacher 
might.  But  the  case  is  somewhat  different  with 
the  Revelation,  which  is  assigned  to  John,  ap- 
parently the  Apostle.  It  is  in  the  form  of  visions; 
and  the  writer  puts  the  most  of  it  into  the  mouth 
of  Jesus  Christ  or  of  angels;  and  by  way  of  ex- 
ception to  all  the  other  books  of  the  Bible  the 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES     243 

writer,  at  the  end  of  the  book,  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  Jesus  a  curse  upon  any  one 
who  should  add  to  or  take  from  its  contents. 
This  must  be  understood  as  a  most  positive 
claim  for  the  fullest  inspiration  and  sanctity. 

And  yet  the  Revelation,  as  it  comes  last  in  the 
New  Testament,  so  was  the  last  to  be  accepted 
as  canonical.  It  was  recognized  in  the  second 
century  by  Papias  and  Justin  Martyr,  but  was 
rejected  in  the  same  century  by  Marcion,  and 
later  was  not  included  in  the  old  Syriac  Version 
and  was  generally  rejected  in  the  Eastern  Church, 
and  by  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  Eusebius,  and 
Chrysostom.  But  the  Western  Church  held  to 
it,  and  opposition  to  it  gradually  died  out,  al- 
though Luther  put  it,  with  Hebrews  and  James, 
among  books  of  doubtful  canonicity.  It  is  hardly 
probable  that  it  was  written  by  the  Apostle  John, 
quite  as  likely  by  John  the  Presbyter,  and  it 
belongs  to  the  Hst  of  a  number  of  books  on  the 
last  things,  a  subject  which  much  fascinated 
imaginative  spirits.  This  is  far  the  best  of  the 
whole  class,  but  I  can  see  no  internal  or  external 
reason  for  believing  that  it  bears  divine  authority. 

If,  then,  not  one  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, except  the  writer  of  the  Revelation,  the 
most  doubtful  of  all,  claims  for  his  work  any  such 
inspired  authority  as  he  allowed  to  the  whole  Old 
Testament ;  and  if  the  same  is  true  for  the  writers 
of  the  Old  Testament,  except  as  three  books  of 


244      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  Pentateuch  and  the  prophetical  works  claim 
to  include  certain  revelations  from  God,  how 
does  it  happen  that  the  doctrine  of  inspiration 
for  each  of  the  two  Testaments  as  a  whole  has 
grown  up  ?  It  is  clear  that  no  special  act  of  in- 
spiration first  gave  its  accrediting  to  either  Testa- 
ment as  a  whole,  but  that  the  separate  books, 
one  after  another,  came  to  be  held  as  sacred  and 
one  was  added  to  another  until  the  time  came 
when  the  collections  were  held  to  be  complete. 

I  take  it  that,  for  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  as 
the  literary  period  advanced  after  the  Captivity 
and  the  return,  and  as  the  development  of  the 
synagogue  advanced  in  its  provision  of  local  wor- 
ship, rolls  were  gathered,  first  of  the  Pentateuch, 
and  later  of  the  prophetic  books,  and  finally  of 
the  Psalms  and  kindred  collections,  to  be  read 
at  Sabbath  services.  The  synagogue  would  pro- 
vide for  the  community  its  library  and  school; 
and  other  books  of  value  beside  those  purely 
religious  might  be  read,  such  as  were  historical, 
or  romances  like  Esther,  Ruth,  and  Daniel,  which 
were  among  the  latest  to  be  accepted. 

Some,  like  Ecclesiasticus  and  Judith,  might 
have  some  currency,  but  not  so  as  to  be  thought 
quite  as  valuable  perhaps  if  not  written  in  He- 
brew, or  if  of  later  composition.  When  read  in 
worship  and  depended  upon  for  religious  and 
patriotic  history,  they  would  gradually  acquire 
sanctity  and  even  the  original  romance  or  the 


THE   CHRISTIAN   SCRIPTURES     245 

old  love-songs  would  be  accepted  as  history  or 
figure.  In  our  own  day,  we  have  seen  the  Book 
of  Mormon  and  Mrs.  Eddy's  teachings  on  Chris- 
tian Science  read  with  the  Bible  in  worship  and 
added  by  some  to  the  canon.  The  process  was 
gradual  but  sure;  and  while  the  three  divisions 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  not  held  to  be  of 
equal  sanctity,  yet  all  were  allowed  divine  in- 
spiration, and  this  result  had  been  reached,  as 
the  New  Testament  books  prove,  before  the  time 
of  Christ.  Jesus  and  his  disciples  as  well  as  the 
Jews  inherited  and  accepted  the  doctrine  without 
question. 

The  process  by  which  so  many  of  the  early 
Christian  Gospels,  Epistles,  and  other  writings 
were  chosen  to  form  a  sacred  canon  was  much  the 
same.  The  Christian  synagogue  became  the 
church,  and  like  the  synagogue  the  church  had 
its  chest  of  valued  books.  There  the  children 
were  taught  and  all  the  people  worshipped  and 
listened  to  the  written  words  of  the  Apostles 
and  other  distinguished  teachers.  Thus  Poly  carp 
made  a  collection  of  the  letters  of  Ignatius  for 
the  church  at  Philippi.  Each  church  would  make 
as  good  a  collection  as  it  could  to  be  added  to  the 
Old  Testament  Scriptures.  These  would  be  read 
on  the  Lord's  Day,  and  by  the  time  a  generation 
or  two  had  elapsed,  the  new  Christian  books  of 
the  Apostles,  and  others  near  them,  would  come 
to  be  regarded  as  quite  as  sacred  as  the  Jewish 


246      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

Scriptures.  It  would  come  gradually,  and  dif- 
ferent churches  would  have  varying  collections. 
Thus  the  West  accepted  the  Revelation  while 
the  East  rejected  it,  and  in  old  manuscripts  of 
the  New  Testament  are  included  the  Epistles  of 
Clement,  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  and  the  Shep- 
herd of  Hermas,  while  to  these  may  be  added  the 
Gospel  According  to  the  Hebrews  and  that  Ac- 
cording to  Peter,  and  the  two  Apocalypses  of 
Peter  and  Paul.  Many  such  books  dropped  out, 
leaving  by  general  consent  those  now  printed  in 
our  Bibles. 

The  result  was  that  the  best  survived,  and 
some  perished.  What  was  at  first  accepted  as 
good  and  precious  grew  into  sanctity,  and  to  it 
was  ascribed  the  same  divine  inspiration  as  to 
the  Old  Testament.  Time  ripens  distinction. 
The  church  in  Corinth  quarrelled  as  to  the  pref- 
erence to  be  given  Paul  or  Peter  or  Apollos. 
Washington  and  Lincoln  were  not  canonized  in 
their  own  day.  There  was  no  cult  of  Shakespeare 
and  Milton  while  they  lived.  A  generation  or 
two  had  to  pass  before  Milton  could  pen  the  epi- 
taph on  Shakespeare's  ''honored  bones,"  and  a 
similar  period  had  to  elapse  before  Dryden's 
famous  quatrain  could  rank  Milton  as  the  fourth 
and  greatest  of  the  world's  epic  poets. 

So  it  was  with  the  New  Testament  books. 
Clement,  about  go  A.  D.,  quotes  the  Old  Testa- 
ment  abundantly,    and   with   such   formulas   as 


THE   CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES     247 

''The  Scriptures  bear  witness,"  "Thus  saith  the 
Holy  Word";  but  the  New  Testament  books  are 
never  quoted  by  him  with  any  such  reverence, 
although  he  does  speak  of  one  of  Paul's  rebukes 
to  the  Corinthians  as  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
In  the  second  century  the  condition  has  changed. 
Polycarp  quotes  the  New  Testament  as  author- 
ity more  than  the  Old,  and  a  little  later  Justin 
Martyr  has  given  it  full  inspiration.  In  our  day 
the  New  is  properly  accepted  as  superior  to  any 
part  of  the  Old. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES 

IN  two  previous  chapters  I  have  spoken  of  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Christian  Scriptures,  and 
have  tried  to  show  what  testimony  they 
give  as  to  the  claim  that  the  writers  had  special 
inspiration  from  God. 

Believing,  as  I  find  evidence  to  believe,  that 
God's  hand  can  be  seen  in  the  creation  and  evolu- 
tion of  nature,  I  have  no  difficulty  in  believing 
that  God  can  act  and  has  acted,  under  his  own 
laws,  in  the  course  of  human  history.  I  can  see 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  guide  good  men,  of 
whatever  nation,  as  teachers  along  the  ways  of 
goodness;  but,  as  in  his  guidance  of  the  course 
of  nature,  I  would  expect  his  action  to  follow  a 
course  of  evolution,  along  which  men  should 
gradually  learn  more  of  him  and  more  of  good- 
ness and  wisdom.  I  see  no  reason  why  an  Elijah 
or  Isaiah  or  John  or  Paul  should  not  have  had 
much  of  such  guidance  and  inspiration,  or  why 
great  and  good  men  in  later  or  earlier  days  might 
not  have  been  thus  favored,  whether  Zoroaster 
or  Socrates. 

But  I  should  not  expect  this  light  from  heaven 
248 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES     249 

to  be  blinding.  It  would  not  give  more  than 
could  be  received.  The  earliest  history  of  man- 
kind makes  them  ignorant  savages,  and  by  a 
course  of  evolution  they  had  to  come  from  a 
condition  somewhat  higher  than  the  beasts  to 
one  of  civilization  and  intelligence.  God  might 
lead  them  up  gently,  patiently,  by  many  hands 
which  his  had  grasped.  God's  prophets  would 
be  imperfect  men,  and  much  imperfection  and 
much  error  would  be  mixed  with  some  new  truth 
discovered  and  taught. 

I  can  see  in  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures 
no  evidence  of  what  is  usually  meant  by  inspira- 
tion; in  much  of  them  no  evidence  of  more  than 
any  historian  or  other  writer  might  attain.  It  is 
not  in  the  history  or  the  science  of  the  Bible,  any 
more  than  in  its  rhetoric,  that  we  are  to  look  for 
anything  unusual;  they  are  no  better  than  what 
we  find  the  literature  of  other  ancient  peoples  to 
be ;  it  is  in  the  amazing  appearance  of  the  teaching 
of  one  supreme  God  of  absolute  justice  and  holi- 
ness. At  first,  as  under  a  process  of  evolution  was 
to  be  expected,  he  was  the  one  God  of  the  Jews, 
while  other  nations  had  other  gods,  but  later,  in 
the  time  of  the  Captivity,  the  Hebrew  prophets 
rose  to  the  conception  that  Jehovah  was  the  only 
God,  and  the  gods  of  the  nations  were  but  silver 
or  gold  or  wood.  No  other  nation  reached  this 
height  of  inspiration.  Greece  invented  civiliza- 
tion, and  from  Greece  alone  has  it  spread  to  all 


2  50      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  world  since;  but  it  was  only  the  Hebrew 
people  that  discovered,  taught  by  their  prophets, 
the  worship  of  one  only  true  God,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth,  and  beside  him  there  is  no 
God.  By  what  miracle  of  insight  or  of  divine 
revelation  did  they  learn  to  worship  this  sole 
God,  that  insignificant  little  tribe  of  Egyptian 
slaves,  fated  to  hold  the  highway  of  two  hostile 
nations,  the  mightiest  on  earth,  both  vulgarly 
polytheistic,  one  worshipping  "Isis  and  Orus  and 
the  dog  Anubis,"  and  the  other,  on  the  Euphrates, 
annexing  gods  from  every  conquered  nation  and 
in  terror  of  heavenly  and  earthly  monsters  and 
dragons  innumerable;  and  right  about  them  the 
many-named  Baalim  and  Ashtaroth  of  the  lesser 
Amorites  and  Syrians  and  Phoenicians.  Why  did 
this  insignificant  football  of  the  nations,  tributary 
or  captive,  find  the  one  God  whom  the  learned 
priests  of  Thebes  and  Memphis  and  Babylon  and 
Nineveh,  searching  for  a  Deus  Exsuperantissimus 
in  their  genealogies  and  hierarchies  of  deities, 
could  not  find — no,  not  even  when  the  Heretic 
King  of  Egypt  chiselled  out  the  names  of  Egypt's 
gods  that  he  might  replace  them  for  a  decade  or 
two  with  the  mighty,  many-handed  god  of  the 
solar  disk?  Here  is  history's  great  riddle,  un- 
solved unless  it  be  by  special  divine  Providence, 
which  made  little  Palestine  the  world's  teacher  in 
religion,  as  little  Greece  is  its  one  master  in  cul- 
ture and  civilization.    Was  there  not  here  revela- 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES     251 

tion  to  the  soul  rather  than  inspiration  to  the 
pen  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  prove  this  or  any  higher 
degree  of  special  inspiration,  for  it  would  trans- 
gress no  natural  law  of  the  mind,  and  it  would 
be  a  matter  of  faith  resting  not  so  much  on  reason 
as  on  its  reasonableness.  It  is  reasonable  that 
God  may  have  guided,  as  a  part  of  his  providence, 
certain  men  anywhere  and  at  any  time  to  be 
teachers  of  their  people.  Miracles  may  be  sup- 
posed to  support  inspiration,  but  the  miracles  are 
a  part  of  the  books  for  which  inspiration  is  sought, 
and  their  genuineness  is  a  part  of  the  question, 
and  is  more  in  doubt  than  the  inspiration  itself. 
Really,  the  one  main  argimient  for  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  that  our  Lord 
is,  I  doubt  not,  truthfully,  reported  to  have 
treated  them  as  such,  referring  to  them  as  pro- 
phetic evidence  of  his  Messiahship.  To  be  sure, 
we  may  reply  that  the  evangelists  wrote  two  or 
three  decades  after  his  death,  and  gathered  their 
reports  of  his  words  from  memory  and  from  stories 
current  in  the  church  and  hardly  verbally  ac- 
curate, and  very  likely  incorporated  their  own 
ideas  of  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy;  but,  as  the 
record  stands,  Jesus  himself  accepted  the  current 
Jewish  notion  of  the  inspired  infallibiHty  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  it  is  almost  certain  that  he 
was  taught  in  the  synagogue  school  to  believe  as 
every  one  believed.     Whatever  view  is  taken   of 


252      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  divinity  in  Jesus,  this  is  admitted  by  all :  that 
he  grew  in  knowledge  from  his  childhood,  that 
he  did  not  know  when  he  should  return  to  earth, 
and  that,  if  correctly  reported,  he  was  mistaken 
when  he  said  that  his  second  coming  would  take 
place  during  the  life  of  that  generation.  Jesus 
was  not  alone  in  his  acceptance  of  the  prevalent 
doctrine  of  Scriptiu^e.  But  that  doctrine  had 
grown  up  gradually,  and  had  no  definite  basis. 
Because  the  Jews  of  two  or  three  hundred  years 
before  Christ  had  developed  this  doctrine,  the 
Christian  Church  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  years 
or  more  added  their  own  Scriptures  to  the  in- 
spired canon. 

What  is  valuable  in  the  Bible,  Old  Testament 
and  New,  is  its  truth  rather  than  its  inspiration, 
its  religious  truth  and  its  historical  truth.  Chris- 
tianity depends  on  the  truth  in  the  Scriptures, 
not  on  their  inerrancy;  otherwise,  if  error  were 
proved,  that  would  overthrow  Christianity. 

We  do  not  need  to  search  with  a  microscope 
to  find  errors  of  fact  in  the  Bible.  They  are 
patent.  The  world  of  earth  and  stars  was  not 
made  in  six  days.  The  meaning  of  the  story  in 
the  very  first  chapter  is  not  to  be  twisted  and 
wrenched  by  hunting  in  the  dictionary  for  a 
definition  of  "day"  that  will  stretch  it  to  mil- 
lions of  years,  for  the  question  of  meaning  is 
purely  literary,  not  arbitrarily  lexical,  as  if  ''The 
evening  and   the   morning  were   the  first   day" 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES    253 

could  cover  a  whole  geologic  period.  The  truth 
of  the  chapter  is  not  in  the  details  of  the  pano- 
rama but  in  the  grandeur  and  sublimity  of  the  de- 
tailed conception  that  God  was  the  author  of 
the  firmament  above  and  the  earth  and  the 
waters  beneath.  That  truth  we  can  believe  and 
accept,  and  disbelieve  all  the  rest. 

Nor  do  we  have  to  believe  that  all  men  and 
beasts  perished  from  the  earth,  except  those  in 
Noah's  ark.  With  our  knowledge  the  story  is 
absurd;  and  we  know  that  it  is  an  older  Baby- 
lonian legend  cleansed  of  its  polytheism  to  fit  it 
to  the  acceptance  of  those  who  worshipped  one 
only  God.  Just  as  absurd  is  the  m3rth  of  the  con- 
fusion of  tongues  at  the  Tower  of  Babel.  We 
can  smile  at  the  credulity  which  lengthened  out 
the  lives  of  the  patriarchs,  Terah  205  years,  his 
son  Abraham  175  years,  Isaac  180  years,  Jacob 
147  years,  Joseph  no  years,  and  Moses  120  years, 
at  a  time  when  we  know  from  contemporary 
Egyptian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions  that  the 
ordinary  period  of  life  was  not  exceeded. 

It  is  a  comparatively  simple  thing  to  separate 
the  legendary  from  the  historical  period  in  the 
annals  of  Israel,  and  to  see  in  both  the  develop- 
ment of  the  pure  faith  of  monotheism.  History 
depends  upon  writing;  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
the  Hebrews  had  any  writing  in  their  own  lan- 
guage before  the  time  of  David.  Of  course,  the 
Egyptians   and   Babylonians   had   their    compli- 


2  54      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

cated  pictographic  or  syllabic  systems  of  writing 
long  before,  and  the  Babylonian  system  and  lan- 
guage were  used  in  Palestine,  we  know,  till  near  the 
time  of  Moses  for  international  correspondence, 
but  it  is  exceedingly  improbable  that  the  books 
of  the  Pentateuch  were  written  first  in  Baby- 
lonian or  Egyptian  and  translated  centuries  after 
into  Hebrew.  It  is  much  more  likely  that  the 
so-called  Five  Books  of  Moses  were  composed 
some  considerable  time  after  the  civilization  that 
grew  up  with  David  and  Solomon;  and  this  ac- 
counts for  not  a  little  of  legend  and  miracle  in 
them.  The  freedom  of  composition  is  illustrated 
by  the  fact  that  in  so  solemn  a  document  as  the 
Ten  Commandments  the  reason  given  for  keeping 
the  Sabbath  in  Deuteronomy  is  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  that  given  in  Exodus. 

But  misapprehensions  as  to  the  distinction  be- 
tween history  and  legend  are  far  less  serious  than 
moral  or  religious  imperfections,  and  such  there 
certainly  are,  and  not  a  few  of  them,  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  perhaps  in  the  New.  We  must 
expect  them  if  the  understanding  of  duty  and 
the  knowledge  of  God  come  by  slow  development 
of  ages;  the  new  seed  will  not  at  once  crowd 
out  the  old  weeds.  Indeed  the  whole  sacrificial 
system  common  to  the  nations  about  them,  at 
first  polytheistic  and  later  purified  by  monotheism, 
was  based  on  a  false  conception  of  God  as  a  being 
who  has  to  be  placated  and  bought  off  by  the 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES     255 

most  precious  gifts,  even  to  the  first -bom,  and  the 
prophets  had  to  protest  against  dependence  upon 
it;  and  Christianity  had  to  reject  it  all  and  save 
it  only  as  a  type  of  Christ. 

But  why  should  we  be  surprised  to  find  that 
writers  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures  fell  behind  our 
ethical  standards,  when  we  have  not  oiu'selves 
ceased  from  going  to  war,  and  honor  soldiers  as 
a  superior  caste  ?  I  cannot  read  portions  of  the 
Old  Testament  without  wishing  that  their  trans- 
lation into  new  missionary  languages  might  be 
long  delayed,  and  that  children  might  learn  the 
New  Testament  before  the  Old.  We  should  not 
make  too  much  of  the  Old  Testament;  it  is  far 
from  perfect.  It  is  not  to  edification  to  read  of 
the  seventy  men  of  Bethshemesh  whom  God  slew 
for  looking  into  the  ark  when  it  was  sent  back  by 
the  PhiHstines;  or  of  Uzzah,  who  died  later  be- 
cause God  was  angry  with  him  when  he  tried  to 
steady  the  ark  when  it  shook  as  David  was 
bringing  it  to  Jerusalem;  or  of  EHjah  the  prophet 
slaying  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  priests  of  Baal; 
or  of  Elisha  cursing  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  forty- 
two  little  children  who  had  rudely  called  him  a 
baldhead  and  were  killed  by  bears.  Among  the 
prophets  there  are  not  a  few  whole  chapters,  as 
in  Ezekiel  and  Amos,  not  fit  to  be  read  in  public 
worship  because  of  the  vengeance  which  they  de- 
mand against  the  enemies  of  Israel.  There  is  in 
them  none  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus.     And  even  in 


256      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  New  Testament  we  are  sometimes  disturbed 
because  what  Jesus  said  or  did  seems  wrong,  and 
we  cannot  help  asking  if  the  tale  be  true :  as  when 
our  Lord  is  said  to  have  cursed  the  barren  fig- 
tree,  which  belonged  to  somebody,  and  it  withered 
away;  or  when  he  was  asked  to  leave  a  city  be- 
cause he  had  destroyed  a  herd  of  swine ;  or  when 
he  forbade  his  disciples  to  teach,  as  they  went 
two  and  two,  outside  of  Jewry,  because  he  was 
sent  only  to  the  lost  sheep  of  Israel.  Or  how  can 
we  at  this  late  day  be  expected  to  approve,  even 
if  we  can  credit,  the  sudden  execution,  by  the 
malediction  of  Peter,  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira 
for  ''lying  to  the  Holy  Ghost"  ? 

If  a  stringent  theory  of  inspiration,  whether 
we  call  it  inerrant  or  plenary,  fails  when  judged 
by  either  history  or  morals,  it  equally  fails  when 
we  test  the  New  Testament  by  its  interpretation 
of  the  Old.  No  scholar  would  now  dare  to  use 
the  Old  Testament  in  argument  as  the  writers  of 
the  New  Testament  use  it,  getting  in  a  rabbinic 
way  meanings  out  of  it  that  were  not  in  the  mind 
of  the  old  prophet.  The  first  chapter  of  Matthew 
quotes  a  prophecy,  ''A  virgin  shall  conceive," 
etc.,  as  fulfilled  in  the  birth  of  Christ;  but  it  has 
no  plausible  relation  to  Jesus;  for  Isaiah  goes  on 
to  tell  Ahaz  that  before  her  child  is  old  enough  to 
know  good  from  evil  his  two  enemies,  the  kings 
of  Syria  and  Samaria,  would  die.  In  the  next 
chapter   Matthew   quotes  the  words  of   Hosea, 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES     257 

*'Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  son,"  as  ful- 
filled in  the  return  of  the  infant  Jesus  from  Egypt, 
when  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  the  quoted  pas- 
sage is  not  prophetical  but  looks  backward: 
''When  Israel  was  a  child  then  I  loved  him,  and 
I  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt,"  and  Hosea  goes 
on  to  say  that  after  coming  out  of  Egypt  Israel 
turned  back  to  idols.  The  book  of  Hebrews  offers 
what  we  should  call  illegitimate  expositions  of 
Old  Testament  passages  which  suffer  a  verbal 
dislocation,  as  when  in  the  first  chapter  the  pas- 
sage, *'I  will  be  unto  him  a  Father  and  he  shall 
be  unto  me  a  Son,"  which  was  addressed  definitely 
to  David,  is  made  prophetic  of  Christ.  So  through 
two  chapters  the  author  proves  that  Jesus  is 
greater  than  Abraham  on  the  basis  of  a  verse 
which  says:  ''Thou  art  a  priest  forever  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek,"  which  has  no  bearing  on 
his  argument. 

But,  as  I  have  said  already,  the  value  of  the 
Bible,  as  of  any  other  book,  depends  on  the 
truth,  especially  the  new  truth  that  it  brings  us. 
It  is  to  be  expected  that  it  will  retain  errors  be- 
longing to  its  times,  for  without  error  it  would 
not  be  comprehended  or  received  by  the  people 
to  whom  it  was  addressed.  And  this  is  true  even 
though  it  contain  ethical  errors  and  imperfect 
views  of  God.  Every  failure  to  see  moral  obliga- 
tion clearly  involves  a  relatively  false  view  of 
God;   for  God  is  our  highest  conception  of  what 


2  58      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

is  right.  Even  yet  are  we  gaining  truer  views  of 
right  and  wrong.  We  understand  duty  better 
than  it  was  understood  in  Paul's  day.  Paul  knew 
that  in  Christ  there  was  neither  bond  nor  free, 
but  he  gives  no  sign  of  knowing  that  slavery  was 
wrong.  For  aught  he  could  see  woman  was  a 
subject  sex;  we  free  both  women  and  slaves. 
Jesus  had  taught  that  God  was  a  loving  and  for- 
giving Father;  Paul  could  not  get  beyond  the 
idea  of  expiation  and  appeasement  of  God  by 
sacrifices,  and  from  him  and  the  author  of  He- 
brews the  doctrine  came  which  Milton  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  God  speaking  to  his  Son  in  the 
heavenly  conclave,  that  Adam,  because  of  his  sin, 

"  To  expiate  his  treason  hath  naught  left, 
But,  to  destruction  sacred  and  devote, 
He  with  his  whole  posterity  must  die: — 
Die  he  or  Justice  must;  unless  for  him 
Some  other,  able,  and  as  willing,  pay 
The  rigid  satisfaction,  death  for  death." 

That  is  Old  Testament  teaching,  the  teaching  of 
justice,  righteousness,  not  the  full  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  of  full, 
free,  fatherly  love.  And  so  it  is  that  too  many 
of  us  have  regarded  the  Second  Person  of  the 
Trinity  as  the  expression  of  the  infinite  love  of 
God,  and  the  First  Person  of  the  Trinity  as  the 
expression  of  God's  stem  punitive  justice. 

But  I  will  be  asked:  "If  you  deny  an  infallible 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES     259 

Bible,  what  have  you  left?  You  are — are  you 
not  ? — an  infidel,  an  unbeliever,  left  like  other 
pagans  to  the  bare  light  of  nature."  We  are 
used  to  hearing  that  reproach  from  Uzzahs  who 
rush  to  steady  the  ark.  It  is  better — it  is  safer — 
to  seek  after  the  cold  truth  than  it  is  to  try  to 
bolster  up  faith.  But  Christianity  surely  does 
not  depend  on  the  possession  of  an  infallible 
Scripture.  It  depends  on  the  spiritual  truth  in 
the  New  Testament,  on  the  true  conception  of 
God  as  Father,  on  love  for  others  as  the  regnant 
principle  of  life  as  against  self-culture  or  any 
other  coarser  form  of  selfishness;  on  the  king- 
dom of  God  to  be  created  on  earth  by  that  love 
expanding  over  all  humanity;  and,  historically, 
it  depends  on  the  person  of  Jesus,  the  Christ, 
whose  teachings,  life,  and  death  initiated  the 
highest  of  all  religions.  But  it  is  his  teachings 
which  we  must  accept,  and  not  any  matters  of 
history  about  him,  from  his  birth  to  his  resurrec- 
tion and  ascension.  They  only  are  of  cardinal 
and  essential  importance;  for  love  affects  char- 
acter, while  history,  correct  or  incorrect,  bears 
only  on  intelligence. 

What,  then,  is  left  when  I  venture  to  question 
and  doubt,  or  even  to  deny,  on  the  basis  of  my 
own  reason,  statements  which  I  find  in  the  Bible, 
and  to  disapprove  matters  of  morals,  theology,  or 
religion  recognized  not  unfavorably  in  the  two 
Testaments  ?    This  is  left :  the  search  for  and  dis- 


26o      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

covery  of  God  in  the  myths  of  the  childhood  of 
the  race,  the  grandest  discovery  to  which  the 
mind  of  man,  wandering  among  portents  and 
omens  and  dreams,  has  ever  been  guided,  the 
story  of  the  marvellous  discovery,  scarce  credible 
where  made,  that  God  is  one  and  that  he  created 
and  rules  the  world.  The  great  fact  was  learned 
by  the  teachers  of  an  insignificant  tribe,  but  its 
implications  had  to  be  slowly  found;  and  I  see 
in  the  successive  books  of  the  Old  Testament  a 
clearer  and  ever  clearer  sense  of  God's  holiness, 
and  of  the  obligations  of  justice  and  right  as 
resting  on  men.  It  is  worth  while,  greatly  worth 
while,  to  possess  this  unique  collection  of  writings 
of  prophets  and  psalmists  and  historians,  utterly 
unique  in  the  history  of  ancient  literature,  with 
whom  God  and  righteousness  were  supreme,  and 
from  whose  Hebrew  faith  alone  we  have  inherited 
our  knowledge  of  God.  When  I  try  to  conjec- 
ture how  this  sublime  vision  and  this  wonderful 
succession  of  seers  and  sages  was  able  to  conceive 
and  teach  what  was  hidden  from  more  gifted  and 
cultured  nations,  I  do  not  find  it  easy  to  believe 
that  it  all  came  through  some  mysterious  special 
genius  for  religion,  and  I  find  it  easier  to  see  the 
proof  of  the  guidance  of  that  indwelling  Spirit  of 
God  which  we  call  inspiration,  not  knowing  how 
or  where  it  may  work. 

And  much  more  is  left.    I  see  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment the  Mosaic  religion  suddenly  rejuvenating 


INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES    261 

itself  and  developing  into  Christianity.  I  see 
Jesus  an  utterly  new  sort  of  prophet,  announcing 
and  promising  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  spread 
over  the  earth.  That  was  new;  it  is  not  in  the 
Old  Testament.  I  find  a  new  doctrine  of  God 
and  a  new  doctrine  of  man — of  God  as  Father, 
which  is,  being  interpreted,  God  is  love;  of  all 
men  as  brethren,  and  the  duty  to  treat  them  with 
love,  all  of  them,  Jew  and  Gentile,  and  to  sacrifice 
for  them,  to  die  for  them  if  needful,  to  teach  them 
the  good  news  of  the  love  of  God  and  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  which  is  the  kingdom  of  love.  I 
find  God  brought  very  near  to  us  in  this  world, 
and  the  promise  of  the  world  to  come. 

All  this  constitutes  a  new  religion,  a  reHgion 
the  world  had  never  known,  a  religion  of  loving 
worship  toward  God,  and  a  religion  of  all  possible 
social  service  toward  men.  The  first  Christians 
were  noted  because  they  loved  one  another,  and 
buried  the  imburied  bodies  of  the  pagan  poor 
about  them.  I  may  not  be  sure  that  the  very 
fulness  of  God  dwelt  in  the  man  Jesus ;  but  God's 
wisdom,  which  was  with  God  from  the  beginning, 
his  Logos,  dwelt  mightily  in  Jesus,  and  allowed 
him  to  give  to  man  a  better  knowledge  of  God 
by  far  than  the  world  had  ever  learned,  even  from 
the  best  of  Hebrew  prophets.  And  I  and  any  one 
can  see  that  Paul  and  the  other  Apostles  caught 
much  of  his  spirit,  and  spread  it  abroad  after  his 
death;  and  if  I  fail  to  see  that  they  were  wholly 


262      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

right  when  with  one  hand  they  discarded  the 
Jewish  ordinances  ready  to  perish,  and  with  the 
other  made  them  the  authority  for  a  new  sacrificial 
system  of  pardon  for  which  love  was  enough,  may 
I  not  see  that  the  spell  of  Mosaism  could  not  at 
once  be  fully  thrown  off,  and  that  there  was  in- 
spiration enough  left,  so  that  the  cleansing  fire 
of  its  love  might  purge  the  remaining  dross  of 
the  law  of  justice  appeased  by  sacrifice;  and  we 
can  approach  directly  to  God,  with  the  God  in 
Jesus  Christ  as  our  Mediator,  or  even  with  no 
mediator  at  all,  saint,  or  Virgin  Mother,  or  Jesus 
Messiah? 

So  I  do  not  look  on  any  doctrine  of  inspiration 
as  essential  or  even  important;  but  the  truth 
which  came  so  suddenly  to  the  world  in  Jesus 
Christ,  that  is,  the  Christian  religion,  is  of  infinite 
value,  and  is  such,  apart  from  any  theology  about 
any  way,  additional  to  its  evident  truth,  by  which 
men  have  believed  it  to  be  accredited. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

JESUS  THE   CHRIST 

THE  old  question,  ''Who  do  men  say  that 
the  Son  of  Man  is?"  now  is  asked  as 
earnestly  as  in  the  days  when  he  went 
about  teaching  and  healing;  and  however  the 
answers  may  vary,  so  deep  and  wide  has  been 
his  influence  that  tkere  are  few  who  cannot  ac- 
cept Peter's  confession,  "Thou  art  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God."  Who  need  measure 
his  words  when  acknowledging  the  mightiest 
power  that  has  ever  moved  the  world  ? 

Peter  did  not  know  what  the  words  meant  to 
which  he  was  giving  his  assent.  What  was  it  to 
be  the  Christ,  the  Messiah  ?  He  thought  it  was 
to  be  a  lordly  ruler  over  freed  Israel,  or  even  over 
the  subject  Roman  Empire  and  the  whole  earth; 
he  had  to  learn  that  it  meant  for  him  and  his 
Master  crucifixion  and  "content  with  death  and 
shame,"  for  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world. 
But  through  the  centuries  that  have  passed,  and 
to  the  end  of  time,  no  badge  of  honor  fails  to 
yield  place  to  the  cross  of  the  Christ.  Jesus  is  the 
world's  Messiah. 

Yet  all  we  know  of  the  life  and  death  and  resur- 
rection of  Christ  is  what  was  written  in  four  short 

263 


2  64      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

biographies,  of  which  three  repeat  much,  and  the 
fourth  is  not  so  much  a  history  as  an  exposition. 
The  three  are  made  up  of  various  jottings  and 
memoranda  written  first  from  memory  of  inci- 
dents and  discourses,  such  as  were  repeated  in 
meetings  of  the  early  Christians,  collected  in  no 
such  critical  way  as  a  modem  scholar  would 
write  a  biography,  but  compiled  with  all  honesty 
and  with  all  reverence  as  well  as  the  authors 
could  do  it,  a  generation  or  more  after  the  death 
of  our  Lord.  Luke  says  he  had  many  written 
sources,  as  doubtless  had  Matthew,  and  perhaps 
Mark,  who  must  have  heard  Peter  tell  what  his 
Master  said  and  did.  Of  these  three  Gospels 
Mark  is  the  oldest,  and  comes  nearest  to  the 
primitive  tradition ;  while  in  a  half-century,  more 
or  less,  before  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
were  compiled  there  had  been  time  for  accretions 
and  embellishments  to  have  grown  up  on  the 
simple  but  wonderful  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 
Paul  does  not  seem  to  have  known  anything  of 
any  of  our  present  four  Gospels.  Pious  invention 
added  other  stories  to  the  life  of  Christ,  some  of 
which  we  have  in  Apocryphal  Gospels  never  ac- 
cepted in  the  canon,  but  which  illustrate  the 
growth  of  myths  which  always  form  an  accre- 
tion about  the  life  of  a  hero.  So  we  have  the 
story  of  Washington  and  the  cherry-tree,  and  in 
late  days  a  cycle  of  miracles  has  sprung  up  around 
the  founder  of  the  Babist  sect. 


JESUS  THE   CHRIST  265 

Of  the  teachings  of  Jesus  as  variously  reported 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  nothing  need  be  said  be- 
yond what  I  have  already  said,  that  the  world 
has  accepted  them  as  the  new  revelation  of  God 
as  love,  and  of  love  to  all  humanity  as  the  highest 
expression  of  duty,  as  against  all  the  ethical  sys- 
tems that  make  self -culture  the  chief  duty.  The 
Emperor  Julian,  who  knew  Christianity  and 
rejected  it,  said  in  his  Oration  to  the  Cynics: 
"The  end  and  aim  of  the  Cynic  philosophy  and 
of  all  other  philosophies  is  happiness,  along  the 
line  of  one's  nature."  Such,  he  tells  us,  is  the 
definition  of  happiness  for  the  gods,  that  they 
fulfil  their  own  nature,  and  make  the  most  of 
themselves.  The  Christian  ethics  requires  us  to 
value  others  as  much  as  ourselves,  and  so  to 
sacrifice  ourselves  for  others,  thus  making  justice 
to  our  fellow  men  insufficient  and  making  over- 
flowing love  supreme.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  is 
again  new  and  supreme  in  religion  in  that  it 
places  no  value  on  service  of  the  hand  or  mouth, 
but  only  on  the  worship  of  the  heart.  Religion 
is  solely  spiritual.  This  is  the  new  ethics  and  the 
new  religion  which  Jesus  brought  in  his  teaching, 
and  beyond  which  we  have  not  gone,  and,  so  far 
as  we  can  see,  never  can  go.  All  this  is  to  be  ac- 
cepted beyond  doubt.  We  can  judge  of  it.  We 
are  capable  of  judging,  for  the  evidence  is  in  our- 
selves;  we  respond  to  it. 

But  as  we  read  the  Gospels  the  case  cannot  be 


266      WHAT   I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

the  same  as  to  the  biography  and  history  they 
have  compiled.  They  have  to  be  tested  by  the 
best  critical  judgment  we  have,  and  no  other 
subject  in  all  literary  history  has  attracted  so 
many  scholars.  It  is  a  proper  subject  whatever 
our  view  as  to  inspiration,  for  our  view  of  in- 
spiration must  depend  on  what  we  first  conclude 
as  to  the  veracity  of  the  reports  of  the  acts  of 
our  Lord,  and  especially  as  to  the  miracles  re- 
lated about  him.  The  evidence  as  to  their  truth 
we  are  obliged  to  sift,  for  it  is  not  such  as  we 
would  accept  now  as  related  to  some  modern 
teacher  or  claimant.  It  is  the  reports  coming  we 
do  not  know  from  whom  and  gathered  by  quite 
uncritical  compilers  who  differ  on  many  minor 
and  some  major  matters.  I  have  heard  it  often 
said  that  Jesus  was  so  wonderful  a  teacher  that 
his  divine  teaching  accredits  his  miracles.  But 
that  is  a  topsyturvy  argument.  The  purpose  of 
the  miracle  is  to  accredit  the  teacher;  not  of  the 
teacher  to  accredit  the  miracle. 

I  am  not  conscious  of  any  prejudgment  against 
miracles.  I  have  been  taught  to  believe  in  them 
and  have  accepted  them,  certainly  some  of  them, 
but  I  admit  that  my  faith  in  them  is  less  than  it 
was;  partly  because  the  evidence  for  those  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  so  weak,  and  the  proof  for 
those  of  the  New  Testament  by  no  means  such 
as  we  might  desire  for  evidential  purposes;  and 
partly  because  they  have  become  of  much  less 


JESUS   THE   CHRIST  267 

evidential  value  since  burden  of  proof  is  now  re- 
quired to  support  the  miracles  and  not  the  teach- 
ing. Indeed,  the  miracles  have  come  to  be  a  weak- 
ness rather  than  a  strength.  Of  one  miracle  this 
is  not  true,  the  miracle  of  the  resurrection  of  our 
Lord.  If  that  can  be  depended  upon  it  is  of  very 
great  help  in  supporting  the  teaching  of  our  Lord 
as  to  the  future  state. 

And  yet  I  find  in  myself  a  growing  hesitation 
about  accepting  second-hand  witnesses  to  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  I  believe  no 
man  living  has  ever  seen  a  genuine  miracle.  I 
do  not  believe  that  any  one  has  seen  a  miracle 
since  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  A  multitude  are 
reported  every  year:  miracles  are  cheap;  but 
yet  we  do  not  believe  in  them.  We  beHeve  the 
laws  of  nature  are  not  transcended.  Are  the 
stories  true  told  of  miracles  in  Christ's  day  ?  Not 
one  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  claims 
ever  to  have  seen  a  miracle.  The  Matthew  Gos- 
pel is  said  to  have  been  based  on  an  Aramaic 
writing  by  the  Apostle  Matthew,  but  that  is  lost. 
Mark  was  not  an  eye-witness,  nor  Ltike.  We  do 
not  know  who  wrote  the  Fourth  Gospel,  John  the 
Apostle  or  John  the  Presb3rter,  or  some  one  else; 
but  it  is  a  didactic  work  rather  than  a  biography, 
written  to  magnify  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God.  The 
nearest  we  have  to  an  assured  eye-witness  is 
found  in  the  first  verse  of  the  First  Epistle  of 
John,  if  that  was  written  by  the  Apostle,  which 


2  68      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

says:  "That  which  was  from  the  beginning,  that 
which  we  have  heard,  that  which  we  have  seen 
with  our  eyes,  that  which  we  beheld  and  our 
hands  have  handled,  concerning  the  Word  [or 
word]  of  life  (and  the  life  was  manifested,  and  we 
have  seen  and  bear  witness,  and  declare  unto  you 
the  life,  the  eternal  life,  which  was  with  the 
Father  and  was  manifested  unto  us) ;  that  which 
we  have  seen  and  heard  declare  we  unto  you  also, 
that  ye  also  may  have  fellowship  with  us;  yea, 
and  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  his  Son 
Jesus  Christ."  And  he  goes  on  to  say  that  ''the 
message  we  have  heard  from  him,"  is  ''that  God 
is  light,"  and  that  we  should  not  "walk  in  the 
darkness."  There  is  not  in  the  whole  Epistle  one 
reference  to  a  miracle,  not  even  to  the  resur- 
rection, only  to  abiding  in  God.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  agreed  that  the  Epistle  was  written  by 
John  the  Apostle,  and  there  is  serious  reason  to 
believe  that  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter,  which  does 
plainly  mention  the  miracle  of  the  resurrection, 
was  not  written  by  the  Apostle. 

The  Gospel  miracles  are  those  of  healing,  the 
virgin  birth,  and  the  resurrection.  One  might 
as  well  deny  that  Christ  lived  at  all  as  to  deny 
that  he  was  a  healer.  There  is  no  intrinsic  im- 
probability in  the  statements  that  he  healed  the 
sick.  We  have  had  healers  in  every  generation, 
followed  by  thousands,  multitudes  of  whom  de- 
clared they  had  been  healed  from  real  diseases; 


JESUS  THE   CHRIST  269 

and  as  old  pagan  shrines  were  crowded  with  ef- 
figies of  portions  of  the  body  healed  by  prayers 
and  vows  to  the  gods,  so  the  walls  of  churches 
have  been  covered  with  crutches  and  trusses 
thrown  away  by  invalids  who  follow  some  Zionist 
healer  or  popular  saint.  But  the  diseases  cured 
are  usually  those  caused  by  a  nervous  breakdown, 
for  the  cure  of  which  faith  has  a  marvellous  power. 
Such  were  many  of  the  diseases  healed  by  our 
Lord,  who  required  faith  of  his  invalids;  and 
where  there  was  little  faith,  as  in  his  own  city  of 
Nazareth,  we  are  told  that  he  could  not  do  many 
mighty  works  there.  But  this  explanation  will 
not  hold  in  cases  of  leprosy,  nor  of  those  bom 
blind,  nor  those  raised  from  the  dead.  Either 
those  were  genuine  miracles  or  they  were  legends 
that  had  grown  up  during  the  generation  or  more 
after  our  Lord's  death  before  the  Gospels  were 
composed.  It  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  that  such  myths  should  arise.  We  know 
of  legends  not  incorporated  in  the  Gospels,  such 
as  that  of  the  infancy,  which  reports  Jesus  at 
play  as  a  child,  making  sparrows  of  clay,  while 
the  sparrows  made  by  his  companions  remained 
clay,  but  those  made  by  the  boy  Jesus  took  wing 
and  flew  away.  We  reject  the  miracle  at  once  as 
too  puerile,  under  the  Horatian  literary  rule  not 
to  have  a  god  intervene  unless  the  occasion  is 
worthy;  and  this  is  not  worthy;  and  for  this 
same  reason  I  would  reject  the  Old  Testament 


2  70      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

miracle  of  the  borrowed  axe  that  was  made  to 
swim. 

If  a  multitude  of  stories  and  legends  were  likely 
to  grow  up  in  the  first  half-century  about  the 
wonderful  teacher  and  healer,  as  we  know  was 
the  case  during  the  first  century,  and  if,  even,  as 
in  the  Gospel  of  John,  religious  teaching  could  be 
told  in  the  form  of  miracle  stories,  it  may  well  be 
that  stranger  miracles  than  those  really  performed 
through  an  act  of  faith  should  have  been  included 
in  the  three  Gospels,  such  as  those  of  the  raising 
of  the  dead.  Faith,  we  all  know,  will  work  won- 
derful miracles  of  healing,  and,  in  a  community 
which  easily  believes,  tales  of  wonder  grow  as 
easily.  I  must  hold — I  cannot  help  it  if  I  would — • 
that  it  is  our  duty,  seeking  truth,  to  sift  the  evi- 
dence and  sift  the  miracles,  with  this  assurance, 
that  for  us  the  miracles  are  not  needed  to  support 
our  faith  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  as  to 
duty  toward  God  and  man.  The  teachings  of 
our  Lord  justify  and  prove  themselves.  We  can- 
not go  back  on  them ;  but,  granting  conduct  to  be 
pleasing  to  God,  whatever  conclusion  we  honestly 
reach  on  matters  of  history  or  philosophy,  be  we 
wise  or  ignorant,  we  shall  still  abide  in  the  taber- 
nacle of  his  love. 

The  miracle  of  the  virgin  birth  requires  sepa- 
rate consideration,  for  much  more  is  made  of  it 
now  than  was  made  by  the  Apostolic  Church. 
It  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  but 


JESUS  THE   CHRIST  271 

is  added  in  the  later  Gospels  of  Matthew  and 
Luke.  Nowhere  else  is  it  referred  to  in  the  Bible. 
Paul  never  refers  to  it  to  the  special  glory  of  Jesus 
as  the  Son  of  God,  nor  does  the  author  of  He- 
brews. If  they  did  not  know  of  it,  or  did  not  find 
it  an  important  doctrine,  I  do  not  see  how  it  is 
important  for  us.  Indeed,  God  could  beyond 
question  as  easily  have  put  the  fulness  of  his 
spirit  into  Jesus  having  a  human  father  as  into 
Jesus  with  only  a  htiman  mother.  If  he  had  no 
human  father,  that  could  be  known  only  to  Mary 
herself  and  could  in  no  way  be  proved,  and  it 
certainly  was  not  known  to  the  people  of  Nazareth, 
who  believed  him  to  be  the  son  of  Joseph;  and 
it  is  strange  that  Mark  does  not  tell  so  astonish- 
ing a  thing  in  his  Gospel.  The  story  told  in  Mat- 
thew and  developed  in  Luke  looks  to  me  like  a 
beautiful  embellishment  of  the  Gospel  story,  con- 
ceived to  give  the  additional  honor  which  seemed 
to  the  writers  to  be  properly  due  to  the  Messiah, 
and  suggested  by  the  prophecy,  ''A  virgin  shall 
conceive  and  bear  a  son,"  which  had  no  such 
meaning  as  was  put  upon  it,  but  which,  under 
the  very  loose  Jewish  way  of  exegesis,  and  applied 
to  Jesus,  might  require  him  to  be  bom  of  a  virgin. 
But  it  would  seem  that  the  story  of  birth  without 
human  fatherhood,  though  unfamiliar  to  Hebrew 
thought,  was  familiar  to  Greek  fable,  which  had 
multitudes  of  heroes  begotten  by  the  gods  of 
human  maidens,   and   I   cannot   deny   that,   ex- 


2  72      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

quisite  as  the  story  is  and  ever  dear  as  it  will  be 
to  us,  it  represents  a  pagan  view,  and,  while  meant 
to  honor  Jesus  and  Mary,  it  does  not  honor  God. 
Yet  I  do  not  want  to  lose  it  any  more  than  I  want 
to  lose  the  sublime  story  in  Genesis  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world  in  six  days,  with  its  Sabbath 
rest. 

The  final  miracle  of  Christ  is  that  of  the  resur- 
rection and  ascension.  Unlike  the  infancy  story, 
we  have  the  fullest  evidence  from  the  earliest  rec- 
ords known  to  us  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
from  the  dead  was  universally  accepted  as  a  fact 
by  the  church.  On  it  Paul  based  his  ministry.  To 
be  sure,  he  had  had  a  spiritual  vision  of  the  risen 
Christ  and  regarded  himself  as  a  witness;  but  he 
also  knew  and  believed  in  the  resurrection  on  the 
third  day,  and  he  tells  the  whole  story  in  a  sort 
of  confession  of  faith,  ''that  Christ  died  for  our 
sins  according  to  the  Scriptures;  and  that  he  was 
buried ;  and  that  he  hath  been  raised  on  the  third 
day  according  to  the  Scriptures;  and  that  he  ap- 
peared to  Cephas;  then  to  the  twelve;  then  he 
appeared  unto  above  five  hundred  brethren  at 
once,  of  whom  the  greater  part  remain  until  now, 
but  some  are  fallen  asleep;  then  he  appeared  to 
James;  then  to  all  the  Apostles;  then  last  of  all, 
as  to  one  born  out  of  due  time,  he  appeared  to  me 
also."  What  Paul  believed  they  all  believed. 
Again  and  again  in  his  Epistles  he  mentions 
Christ's  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  bases  on 


JESUS   THE   CHRIST  273 

it  the  whole  weight  of  his  ministry.  If  Christ 
be  not  risen  Paul's  whole  life  is  a  blunder;  and 
when  he  attacks  those  who  say  the  dead  rise  not, 
he  bases  his  argument  on  the  acknowledged  fact 
of  Christ's  resurrection.  The  repeated  appear- 
ances of  our  Lord  after  his  death  are  his  argu- 
ment, they  being  accepted  facts  of  general  knowl- 
edge among  the  believers.  So  this  miracle  of  our 
Lord's  resurrection  from  the  grave  has  vastly 
more  evidence  than  any  or  all  other  miracles  in 
the  Bible.  I  cannot  easily  explain  why  the  total 
church  should  have  accepted  this  belief  if  it  were 
not  true.  To  be  sure,  if  there  were  not  so  many 
witnesses,  a  myth  might  have  arisen  out  of  the 
willingness  to  find  a  prophecy  of  Hosea  fulfilled, 
"After  two  days  will  he  revive  us;  on  the  third 
day  he  will  raise  us  up  and  we  shall  live  before 
him" ;  or  we  may  recall  the  statement  of  the  Jews 
that  the  disciples  might  enter  into  a  conspiracy 
of  deceit.  But  that  seems  improbable  and  at  the 
time  hopeless. 

If  one  refuses  to  accept  a  miracle  as  in  the 
course  of  nature  impossible,  some  explanation  of 
the  origin  of  the  myth  must  be  conjured  up,  even 
to  the  assumption  of  an  American  and  one  or 
two  German  scholars,  that  no  such  person  as 
Jesus  ever  lived,  and  that  the  whole  story  of  his 
life  and  death  is  a  colossal  delusion.  But  this 
last  is  past  belief ;  and,  with  the  evidence  at  hand, 
it  is  easier — apart  from  the  antecedent  denial  of 


2  74      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

any  possible  miracle — to  believe  that  Jesus  did 
rise  from  the  dead  than  that  so  many  witnesses 
were  deceived  by  an  imagined  apparition,  or  that 
they  invented  the  story  to  their  own  sure  persecu- 
tion and  death.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  finally 
and  absolutely  proved  that  Jesus  arose  from  the 
dead  in  such  a  form  that  he  could  be  seen  and 
recognized,  but  no  hypothesis  otherwise  to  ex- 
plain the  fact  that  the  belief  was  universal  in  the 
church  immediately  after  his  death  and  was  at- 
tested by  so  many  witnesses  seems  to  me  plausible. 
For  his  faith  in  this  miracle  Peter  died.  I  recog- 
nize that  the  acceptance  of  this  one  stupendous 
miracle  makes  other  miracles,  otherwise  insuf- 
ficiently substantiated,  considerably  more  credible ; 
but  that  is  all.  I  also  recognize  that  my  satis- 
faction in  accepting  our  Lord's  resurrection  as 
being,  as  Paul  says,  the  assurance  and  first-fruits 
of  our  resurrection  into  immortality,  may  pos- 
sibly warp  my  conclusion  in  its  favor;  but  it 
surely  is  not  my  conscious  desire  to  let  my  wishes 
guide  my  conclusion.  This  I  say,  that  if  the  evi- 
dence appears  to  lead  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  did 
rise  from  the  dead,  and  did  appear  to  the  twelve 
and  to  many  others,  then  I  am  glad;  but  yet  the 
disbelief  would  not,  whatever  Paul's  hasty  lan- 
guage allows,  affect  the  obligation  of  our  conduct 
to  obey  the  rules  and  life  of  the  Christian  religion, 
which  Jesus  promulgated,  obeyed,  and  imposed 
on  his  disciples  and  now  on  all  of  us. 


JESUS   THE   CHRIST  275 

What,  then,  am  I  to  think  of  Jesus  ?  He  called 
himself  the  Son  of  Man,  and  he  allowed  his  dis- 
ciples to  regard  him  as  the  promised  Messiah. 
They  called  him  the  Son  of  God,  and  John's  Gos- 
pel says  that  in  Jesus  the  Logos,  the  Word,  which 
was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  which  made  the 
worlds,  was  made  flesh  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ;  and  as  such  the  Christian  Church  gen- 
erally worships  him.  He,  Jesus,  son  of  Mary, 
man  like  us,  is,  say  the  ancient  creeds  which  we 
repeat,  the  very  God  in  one  of  the  three  Persons. 

I  cannot  see  that  it  is  essential,  or  even  im- 
portant, that  we  should  believe  this  doctrine,  that 
the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  was  incorporated  with 
the  human  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  do  see  that 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  man  and  God 
can  be  thus  unified,  but  that  difficulty  is  of  little 
account,  for  we  can  know  little  of  God's  essence, 
except  that  he  is  a  spirit,  even  as  we  can  know 
little  of  the  essence  of  our  own  spirits.  Nor  am  I 
clear  that  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  meant 
to  make  Jesus  the  Second  Person  in  the  Trinity; 
and  if  he  did  mean  it  I  find  no  reason  for  believing 
that  he  knew  anything  more  about  it  than  we 
can  know.  It  appears  to  me  that  only  God  knows, 
and  he  has  given  us  no  statement  on  the  subject. 
Any  belief  or  disbeHef  is  a  deduction  of  reason,  or 
an  hypothesis  devised  to  account  for  the  facts. 

What  does  the  Fourth  Gospel  say  ?  That  in 
the  beginning  was  the  Logos,  the  Word  with  God. 


2  76      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Now  this  is  just  what  in  the  eighth  chapter  of 
Proverbs  is  said  of  wisdom,  which  is  there  nothing 
more  than  a  personified  attribute  of  God.  It  was 
"before  his  works  of  old " ;  it  was  with  him  ** when 
he  estabHshed  the  heavens";  "when  he  made 
firm  the  skies  above";  ever  "by  him  as  a  master 
workman."  Philo  of  Alexandria  added  to  this 
personification  a  tincture  of  Greek  philosophy. 
To  him  and  to  the  Jews  who  held  the  name  of  God 
too  sacred  to  be  spoken  with  the  lips,  there  was 
needed  an  intermediary  for  the  Infinite  One,  one 
by  whom  all  things  could  be  made,  and  Philo 
translated  the  Hebrew  wisdom  into  the  Greek 
logos,  word,  and  gave  it  entity,  no  longer  ab- 
stract wisdom  but  Jehovah's  substantial  sub- 
stitute creator,  who  operates  for  him,  for  "by 
the  Word  of  Jehovah  were  the  heavens  made, 
and  all  the  host  of  them  by  the  breath  (spirit)  of 
his  mouth."  Here  the  "word"  is  the  spirit,  and 
in  Jewish  interpretation  easily  separated  by  Philo 
from  God  himself.  Philo's  great  effort  was  to 
relate  Greek  philosophy,  Platonic  and  Stoic,  to 
the  Bible.  He  had  the  idea  that  the  self -existent 
Jehovah,  the  "Am  that  I  Am"  is  too  transcendent 
and  sublime  a  being  to  mix  with  matter,  and  so 
God  created  the  world  and  rules  it  by  his  other 
self,  his  Logos,  Word.  The  expression  is  Greek, 
and  comes  down  through  Heraclitus  and  Plato 
and  Zeno  and  the  Neo-Platonists  to  Philo,  who 
found  the  **word"  as  well  as   "wisdom"  in  the 


JESUS  THE   CHRIST  277 

Bible.  God  needed  an  intermediary.  He  made 
the  designs,  the  patterns,  the  ** ideas"  of  things, 
and  the  Word  fashioned  them.  This  Logos  Philo 
calls  "the  tool,  the  instrument  of  God." 

Alexandrian  ideas,  including  those  of  Philo, 
were  rife  among  the  Jews  of  the  first  century,  and 
among  the  Jewish  Christians.  Apollos  was  from 
Alexandria  and,  like  Philo,  was  "mighty  in  the 
Scriptures,"  and  doubtless  in  the  same  allegorizing 
way  which  we  find  in  Hebrews. 

The  first  verses  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  tell  us 
that  the  Word  was  in  the  beginning  with  God, 
and  was  God,  and  by  him  were  all  things  made. 
This  is  no  more  than  was  said  of  wisdom  in  Prov- 
erbs and  the  Apocryphal  wisdom  Hterature,  and 
no  more  than  what  Philo  taught  of  the  Word. 
We  are  then  told  that  the  true  light  came  into 
the  world,  and  that  he  made  the  world.  Then 
the  true  light  must  be  the  same  as  the  Word. 
This  true  light,  the  world  rejected.  Then  we  are 
told  that  "the  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt 
(tabernacled)  among  us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory, 
glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father,  full 
of  grace  and  truth."  Here  the  Word  of  Philo  is 
said  to  have  been  incarnated  in  Jesus,  and  to 
have  "tabernacled"  among  men  with  a  divine 
glory.  I  cannot  see  in  this  the  teaching  that 
Jesus  was  the  Second  Person  in  the  Trinity,  but 
simply  that  he  had  in  him  the  spirit  of  God, 
called  here  the  Word  of  God,  in  a  way  far  superior 


2  78      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

to  that  in  which  it  was  exhibited  in  John  the 
Baptist,  a  way  that  was  unique,  as  was  expected, 
in  the  Messiah.  The  writer  of  the  Gospel,  in  his 
purpose  to  show  that  Jesus  was  ''the  Messiah, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God,"  made  use  of  current 
philosophy,  half  Jewish,  half  Greek,  to  express 
his  view  of  the  greatness  of  our  Lord. 

The  other  passage  from  which  most  directly 
the  doctrine  of  Jesus  as  the  Second  Person  in  the 
Trinity  is  derived,  is  the  baptismal  formula  at 
the  end  of  Matthew's  Gospel.  The  disciples  are 
bidden  to  baptize  "into  the  name  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost."  I  observe 
that  these  parting  words  of  Jesus  are  not  found 
in  any  of  the  other  Gospels;  but  they  surely  rep- 
resent what  was  a  belief  from  the  beginning  in 
the  supreme  primacy  of  Jesus  among  men,  as  the 
Messiah,  and  as  possessing  a  fulness  of  the  spirit 
of  God  making  him  the  one  special  messenger 
from  God  of  truth  and  light.  When  the  Gos- 
pels of  Matthew  and  John  had  been  accepted  as 
sacred  Scripture,  as  binding  and  as  full  of  mean- 
ing as  the  Old  Testament  had  come  to  be,  it  was 
easy  to  draw  from  these  and  other  passages  the 
conclusion  that  Jesus  was  the  very  God,  God  and 
man  mysteriously  united  in  one;  and,  indeed, 
the  doctrine  could  hardly  help  following;  and  it 
was  early  supported  by  intentional  corruptions 
of  the  text,  as  when  in  I  Tim.  3:16  the  confession 
of  faith  in  Jesus,  ''He  who  was  manifested  in  the 


JESUS  THE   CHRIST  279 

flesh,"  was  by  a  dot  in  and  a  cross-line  over  an  O 
made  to  read  ''God  was  manifested  in  the  flesh." 
I  can  see  the  spirit  of  God  pre-eminently  in  Jesus, 
but  whether  the  doctrine  of  three  in  one  is  true 
I  have  no  means  of  knowing.  God  knows,  and 
that  knowledge  it  is  not  important  that  I  should 
possess.  Only  goodness  is  really  essential  as 
taught  by  our  Lord,  for  "grace  and  truth  come  by 
Jesus  Christ,"  and  "of  his  fulness  we  have  all 
received." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  FUTURE   LIFE 

THE  most  solemn  hour  is  the  hotir  of  death. 
The  most  solemn  question  a  man  can  ask 
is,  What  comes  after  death  ? 

One  approaches  this  question  with  great  awe, 
if  he  ventures  to  approach  it  at  all.  It  is  easier, 
pleasanter  to  evade  the  question,  to  rest  in  the 
easy  faith  of  one's  childhood,  when  he  believed 
what  he  was  told  because  he  was  told  it,  and  was 
under  no  obligation  to  seek  for  himself  the  reason 
for  what  he  was  told.  But  we  are  not  children; 
we  are  adults  who  have  no  right  to  believe  any- 
thing except  upon  evidence  presumptive  if  not 
conclusive  of  truth.  We  have  been  taught  that 
there  is  a  future  state,  that  the  soul  is  immortal 
and  it  has  been  believed  the  world  over.  It  is 
not  wholly  a  happy  thing  to  raise  the  question. 
It  conduces  to  happiness  to  believe  what  every- 
body always  has  believed,  Egyptians,  Baby- 
lonians, Greeks,  and  Barbarians,  as  if  it  were  a 
self-evident  fact  that  the  soul  lives  after  the  body 
dies.    But  is  it  self-evident  ? 

It  did  not  seem  self-evident  to  philosophers  of 
old,  and  the  wisest  of  them  searched  for  reasons 

280 


THE   FUTURE   LIFE  281 

to  convince  themselves  that  the  soul  survives  the 
body  and  they  were  not  wholly  satisfied  with 
the  proof;  and  Cicero  took  a  chill  satisfaction 
to  himself  in  saying  that  if  it  should  prove  that 
he  was  mistaken  in  believing  that  he  should  meet 
his  friends  in  the  other  world,  none  of  those  who 
had  opposed  his  belief  would  ever  be  able  to  twit 
him  for  his  error. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  with  its  judgments  of  heaven  and  hell, 
foimd  no  place  in  the  Old  Testament  reHgion. 
It  is  only  in  the  latest  fringe  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures that  we  get,  as  in  Daniel,  a  hint  of  a  future 
life;  but  so  dim  was  the  faith  that  the  ruling 
sect,  that  of  the  Sadducees,  refused  to  believe  in 
angel  or  spirit.  The  belief,  I  presume,  came  in 
tmder  the  Persian  rule ;  for  Judaism  looked  kindly 
on  the  Zoroastrian  faith  of  Cyrus,  who  restored 
the  Captivity  to  Jerusalem;  and  the  Jews  were 
favored  by  his  successors  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah 
and  Ezra.  Thus  we  must  except  the  Mosaic 
religion  from  the  universal  inculcation  of  belief  in 
imimortality ;  and  yet  as  the  story  of  the  Witch 
of  Endor  shows,  there  must  have  been  a  popular 
heterodox  belief  in  the  ghosts  of  the  dead.  Saul 
called  up  the  ghost  of  Samuel;  and  necromancy 
was  punished  with  death  under  Mosaic  Law.  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  reason  why  the 
teachers  of  the  Jewish  religion  made  little  or 
nothing  of  the  future  life  is  because  it  was  in  the 


282      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

neighboring  Egyptian  religion  the  central  doc- 
trine of  its  paganism,  elaborated  in  the  Book  of 
the  Dead  with  strange  ingenuity  of  imagination 
which  invented  a  host  of  gods  and  demons  to 
help  or  harass  the  soul  on  its  perilous  way  to  the 
judgments  of  Osiris  and  his  forty-two  assessors 
and  to  the  realms  of  bliss.  In  Palestine,  so  long 
ruled  by  Egypt,  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  could  not  escape  the  poison  of  poly- 
theism until  the  teaching  of  the  Avesta,  under 
the  ruling  Persian  Empire,  had  replaced  the  many 
gods  of  Egypt  and  Assyria  with  the  one  supreme 
god  Ormazd  and  the  one  almost  supreme  devil 
Ahriman.  But  in  Sadduceeism  the  old  rejection 
of  a  future  life  was  retained ;  and  even  our  Lord, 
when  he  met  this  unbelief,  had  to  use  a  Biblical 
argument  against  it  which  does  not  at  all  convince 
us;  for  the  declaration,  ''I  am  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob,"  does  not  so  naturally 
mean,  I  am  the  God  of  the  present  living  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  as  that,  I  am  he  who  was  their 
God  when  alive. 

I  am  not  clear  why  it  was  that  primitive  men 
came  to  believe  in  the  future  life.  Yet  it  has  ever 
been  so  involved  with  the  belief  in  shadowy 
ghosts  that  appear  to  men  in  waking  visions,  and 
with  the  return  of  the  dead  in  vivid  dreams  for 
encouragement  or  warning,  that  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  that  it  was  because  of  what  they  had  thus 
seen  and  heard  that  they  came  to  believe  that 


THE   FUTURE   LIFE  283 

the  spirits  of  the  dead  still  walked  the  earth. 
The  gods  also  appeared  in  dreams,  as  various  old 
stories  tell  us;  and  if  there  were  gods,  supposed 
to  exist  and  appear  in  the  condition  of  spirits, 
equally  the  spirits  of  men  which  appeared  in 
dreams  must  continue  to  persist  after  death. 
But  such  a  reason  has  no  weight  with  us  who 
understand  better  the  origin  of  dreams;  and  it 
becomes  a  necessity  for  us,  for  our  own  intellec- 
tual satisfaction,  to  investigate  the  value  of  the 
reasons  why  we  believe,  if  we  do  believe,  that  our 
souls,  if  we  have  souls,  do  not  dissolve  with  the 
dissolution  of  the  body. 

Because  I  am  in  philosophy  a  dualist  and  not 
a  monist,  a  spiritualist  and  not  a  materialist,  it  is 
not  difficult  for  me  to  believe  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  The  operations  of  knowing  and 
reasoning  and  feeling  and  wilHng  are  of  an  order 
so  different  from  those  of  weight  and  texture  that 
it  seems  natural  to  believe,  as  the  world  has  al- 
ways believed,  that  there  is  something  that  knows 
and  feels  quite  other  than  the  brain.  The  quali- 
ties, fimctions  or  activities  of  the  body,  such  as 
growth  and  digestion,  are  visibly  physical,  ma- 
terial; while  those  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
referring  to  mind,  such  as  love,  judgment,  pur- 
pose, are  absolutely  different,  of  another  order, 
and  cannot  be  described  or  investigated  in  the 
terms  of  physics.  It  is  hard  work  for  me  to  imag- 
ine that  a  -complex  of  brain  fibres  can  think,  can 


284      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

compose  an  epic,  can  devise  a  cathedral,  can  guide 
a  nation  through  peace  and  war,  could  create  a 
civilization,  or  develop  the  Christian  religion. 

If,  now,  we  are  right  in  believing  that  we  have 
minds  that  inhabit  and  rule  the  body,  but  are 
not  the  body,  then  it  is  a  reasonable  presumption 
that  the  mind,  which  is  not  the  body,  is  not  so 
attached  and  fixed  to  the  body  that  it  must  sink 
into  annihilation  when  the  body  loses  life  and  is 
dissolved.  The  great  probability  is  that  it  sur- 
vives the  death  of  the  body.  It  is  no  complex  of 
parts,  as  is  the  body,  which  can  disintegrate  and 
disappear.  And  if  it  can  and  does  survive,  we 
can  see  no  reason  why  it  may  not  continue  to 
survive  indefinitely  and  forever.  We  know  of 
nothing  that  is  annihilated.  Matter  may  change 
its  form  or  its  combinations  of  atoms,  but  it 
never  ceases  to  exist.  The  analogy  favors  the 
unending  persistence  of  mind.  If  we  have  a  soul 
at  all,  not  material  but  spiritual,  not  brain  but 
mind,  it  is  easy  to  believe,  and  hard  not  to  be- 
lieve, that  it  possesses  the  boon  of  immortality. 

Although  I  thus  conclude  from  the  non-ma- 
terial energies  of  the  human  will,  feeling,  and  rea- 
son that  the  human  soul  is  spiritual  and  survives 
the  body,  I  have  no  right  to  avoid  the  question: 
Do  not  the  lower  animals  show  reason,  feeling,  and 
will,  and  do  all  these,  from  the  protozoon  to  the 
elephant  and  the  collie  dog,  possess  an  immortal 
soul  as  well  as  we  ?    Well,  I  do  not  know  why  they 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE  285 

should  not,  each  after  its  measure.  We  hve  sur- 
rounded by  innumerable  millions  of  them  in  this 
little  world  of  ours,  most  of  them  with  but  an 
infinitesimal  intelligence,  and  others  with  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  intelligence  and  affection,  and 
even  sense  of  duty;  and  this  modicum  of  theirs 
does  not  crowd  our  more  spacious  minds  that 
range  on  a  higher  level;  and  the  infinite  universe 
is  big  enough  for  them  all,  corporeal  or  incor- 
poreal. I  might  say,  as  many  have  said,  that 
man's  reason  is  different  from  animals'  reason, 
and  that  man's  reason  is  worth  survival  and  im- 
mortality, while  their  reason  is  not.  But  I  fail 
to  see  any  difference  in  nature,  only  in  degree; 
and  so  I  have  no  prejudice  against  allowing  that 
whatever  has  reason  or  instinct  or  will  has  a 
mind,  and  that  mind  may  continue  after  death. 
To  be  sure,  this  objection  is  raised  as  if  it  were 
preposterous  to  imagine  that  the  polyp  of  a 
sponge  or  a  coral  has  an  immortal  soul,  but  to 
me  it  is  not  preposterous.  The  polyp  is  not  so 
inferior  to  us  as  we  are  to  the  infinite  God. 

Yet  we  know  so  little  about  what  soul  or  spirit 
is  that  no  one  has  the  right  to  dogmatize  on  the 
subject.  I  can  imagine  that  a  feebly  and  scantily 
segregated  soul  might  be  resolved  back  into  its 
original  ether  or  primitive  infinite  spirit,  while 
stronger  and  better  compacted  spirits  might  re- 
sist return  to  the  vast  profound  of  their  original 
source.     Even  so  some  have  surmised  that  the 


286      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

human  soul  which  has  too  long  sinned  against 
the  laws  of  its  being  will  finally  exhaust  its 
strength  and  waste  away.  Such  may  not  be  the 
case,  and  the  "eternal  hope"  of  the  final  return 
of  all  to  goodness  is  something  better.  Nature 
does  not  favor,  and  the  normal  mind  dreads,  anni- 
hilation : 

''For  who  would  lose, 
Tho  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
These  thoughts  that  wander  thru  eternity, 
To  perish  rather,  swallowed  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night, 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion?  " 

Another  satisfactory  reason  why  I  believe  in 
immortality  is  because  I  believe  in  God.  I  be- 
lieve God  is  a  spirit,  and  therefore  I  believe  in 
spirit,  and  that  there  may  be  other  spirits  than 
the  infinite  spirit.  If  there  is  an  infinite  spirit 
it  is  almost  incredible  to  me  that  there  should 
not  also  be  finite  spirits.  All  the  attributes  of 
God,  who  somehow  brought  into  existence  all 
the  forms  of  matter,  would  seem  to  assure  us 
that  he  would  somehow  secure  the  creation  of 
spiritual  existences,  of  a  vastly  higher  order  than 
matter,  and  thus  much  more  like  himself.  Such 
spiritual  existences  there  seem  to  be  and  to  have 
been,  many  thousands  of  millions  of  them,  in 
the  souls  of  men  ruling  their  bodies,  doing  spirit- 
ual work;  and  I  find  it  plausible,  almost  neces- 
sary, to  believe  that  they  have  come  from  God, 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE  287 

and  are  little  copies  of  the  universal  macrocosm. 
How  many  more  there  are  in  other  worlds,  or 
escape  from  other  worlds,  we  can  only  guess. 
But  if  God  has  created  such  it  seems  likely  that 
they  will  survive  the  death  of  the  body,  even  as 
the  ultimate  elements  of  matter,  escaping  what- 
ever temporary  combinations,  persist  unchanged 
and  indestructible.  Why  should  we  not  thus 
think  of  souls  as  imitary,  as  Plato  thought  of 
them,  indissoluble,  but  residing  for  a  while  in 
bodies,  and  so  capable  of  being  combined  into 
families,  tribes,  and  nations,  even  as  electrons 
are  combined  into  atoms,  molecules,  and  larger 
masses  ?  The  combination  breaks  up ;  families 
and  nations  constantly  dissolve  and  reform;  the 
soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  drawn  away  from  the 
souls  of  the  nation  he  has  guided;  and  in  turn 
every  other  soul  is  moved  by  a  new  force  to 
leave  its  old  attractions  of  kindred  and  friend- 
ship, but  yet  merely  transfers  its  old  attractions 
elsewhere  after  the  manner  of  the  coarser  attrac- 
tions of  physics.  But  the  ultimate  imits  remain 
indestructible,  only  gone  over  to  new  relations. 

I  think  that  for  me  the  principal  assurance  I 
have  of  immortality  rests  in  my  belief  in  God. 
It  is  much  that  I  believe  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  spirit  separate  from  the  body,  and 
therefore  separable,  so  that  the  spirit  does  not 
necessarily  dissolve  with  physical  dissolution. 
It  is  much,  to  my  heart,  that  there  is  testimony 


288      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

that  once  in  Judea  a  man  was  crucified  and  died 
and  afterward  miraculously  appeared  and  walked 
among  men,  as  reported  by  men  who  died  for 
their  witness.  But  the  value  of  these  and  other 
proofs  is  not  absolutely  conclusive.  I  and  others 
can  still  question  and  doubt.  To  be  sure,  the 
argument  drawn  from  the  existence  of  God  as  an 
infinite  spirit  is  not  final,  like  mathematics,  past 
possible  question,  but  it  seems  to  me  so  near 
demonstration  that  I  rest  in  the  belief.  If  there 
is  one  living  great  Spirit  not  shackled  by  physical 
encumbrances,  it  is  incredible  that  there  should 
not  be  others  of  a  lesser  grade,  such  as  ours  in 
the  body  and  beyond  the  body.  Because  the 
divine  spirit  does  not  need  a  physical  body  lesser 
spirits  do  not  need  it.  It  is  logical  that  those 
who  deny  the  immateriality  of  the  soul,  who 
believe  that  the  mind  perishes  with  the  body 
which  created  it,  should  usually  rest  their  ma- 
terialism on  atheism,  or  call  themselves  by  the 
milder  name  of  agnostics. 

I  have  already  indicated  that  to  my  mind  the 
miracles  of  the  Bible  are  not  sufficiently  authen- 
ticated to  be  of  conclusive  value  as  proof  of  the 
existence  of  God.  I  have  also  said  that  the  one 
miracle  which  has  more  support  than  all  others 
combined  is  that  of  the  resurrection  from  the 
dead  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  necessary  to  consider 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  the  soul  after  death. 


THE   FUTURE   LIFE  289 

The  proof  of  Christ's  resurrection  rests  on  the 
concurrence  of  behef,  in  the  very  first  generation 
of  the  church,  that  he  did  rise  from  the  dead, 
and  of  the  belief  that  there  were  many  witnesses 
then  living  who  had  seen  him  after  his  resurrec- 
tion. Their  faith  is  unquestionable,  and  they 
died  for  their  belief. 

We  may  take  and  somewhat  analyze  the  state- 
ments of  Paul  in  I  Cor.  15.  It  is  a  magnificent 
chapter,  one  to  stir  the  blood  of  the  reader,  writ- 
ten by  a  mighty  religious  reformer,  and  yet  a 
man  of  his  day,  and  of  his  day's  trend  of  thinking. 
In  that  chapter  he  treats  of  Christ's  resurrection, 
and  yet  he  surprises  us  by  saying  that  there  were 
those  in  the  Christian  body  at  Corinth  who  did 
not  believe  in  the  general  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
that  is,  who  were  Christian  Sadducees,  as  Paul 
was  a  Christian  Pharisee.  Yet  they  seem  to  have 
believed  in  Christ's  resurrection,  and  Paul  argues 
from  it  as  an  admitted  fact  that  the  resurrection 
of  his  followers  was  to  be  expected,  a  most  natural 
conclusion;  although  one  is  surprised  that  any 
one  could  doubt  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  if 
they  had  ever  heard  of  our  Lord's  teaching  in 
Matt.  25  of  the  Judgment  of  the  Last  Day.  Paul 
says  most  pertinently:  "How  say  some  of  you 
that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead  ?  But  if 
there  is  no  resurrection  from  the  dead,  then  Christ 
hath  not  been  raised." 

Paul  declares  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ 


2  go      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

was  the  sum  of  his  teaching:  "That  Christ  died 
for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures,  that  he 
was  buried,  and  that  he  hath  been  raised  on  the 
third  day  according  to  the  Scriptures;  and  that 
he  appeared  to  Cephas,  then  to  the  twelve,  then 
he  appeared  to  about  five  hundred  brethren  at 
once,  of  whom  the  greater  number  remain  until 
now,  but  some  are  fallen  asleep ;  then  he  appeared 
to  James;  then  to  all  the  Apostles;  then  last  of 
all,  as  to  the  child  untimely  born,  he  appeared  to 
me  also."  Here  is  the  list  of  witnesses,  presented 
to  the  believers  in  Corinth,  of  those  in  Palestine 
who  had  seen  the  Lord  after  he  had  risen  from 
the  dead.  It  is  not  important  to  seek  to  compare 
this  list  of  witnesses  with  those  given  in  the  Gos- 
pels, a  matter  for  the  labors  of  the  harmonists. 
It  is  enough  to  gather  the  fact,  of  which  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  that  in  Palestine  it  was  believed 
by  the  whole  church  that  hundreds  had  seen 
Jesus  after  he  had  risen  from  the  grave.  There 
is  real  weight  to  us  in  this  indisputable  fact,  al- 
though that  which  so  much  impressed  Paul,  that 
he  had  himself  seen  the  Lord,  would  not  be  evi- 
dence to  us,  for  it  was  a  vision ;  and  a  vision  may 
be,  and  often  has  been,  subjective.  Paul  had  at 
least  one  other  vision  when  he  saw  unutterable 
things;  but  frankly  we  must  admit  that  his 
visions  may  have  been  the  product  of  an  intensely 
excited  imagination. 

It  is  difficult  so  to  explain  the  general  belief 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE  291 

among  the  earliest  Christians  that  their  leaders 
and  hundreds  of  others  had  seen  Jesus  alive  after 
his  death.  To  suppose  them  mistaken  is  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Apostles,  the  chief  witnesses,  lied, 
and  died  for  their  lie,  and  that  the  other  wit- 
nesses were  a  myth  which  the  Apostles  invented, 
nothing  less  than  another  lie,  which  was  accepted 
by  their  credulous  followers  and  by  Paul.  Paul 
was  honest,  for  he  really  believed  he  had  seen  the 
Lord;  but  I  cannot  see  how  Peter  and  James  and 
the  other  disciples  who  had  followed  Jesus  for 
years,  not  to  speak  of  the  mother  of  Jesus  who 
lived  with  John,  and  the  other  women  who  fol- 
lowed our  Lord,  could  have  been  mistaken  in 
their  belief  that  they  had  seen  him  again  in  the 
flesh.  It  may  not  have  been  in  the  flesh,  although 
the  story  of  Thomas's  unbelief,  and  that  of 
Christ's  eating  of  fish,  declare  it  was;  but  whether 
in  the  flesh  or  in  a  spiritual  apparition,  as  not  a 
few  now  hold,  makes  no  difference  as  to  the  evi- 
dence of  the  continued  existence  of  the  soul  after 
death.  We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  the 
nature  of  our  Lord's  resurrection  body,  which  we 
are  told  passed  through  closed  doors,  for  it  is 
only  his  soul  that  this  question  has  to  do  with. 

Yet  I  admit  that  the  actual  reappearance  of 
Jesus  in  a  visible  form  is  so  extraordinary,  so 
unique,  that  one  must  be  pardoned  for  doubting 
whether  it  be  not  a  m3rth.  No  other  case  is 
known,  even  in  the  Bible,  that  would  be  credible 


292      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

to  this  present  generation.  The  story  of  Lazarus 
is  told  only  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which  is  not 
history,  but  doctrine.  The  story  is  told  as  a 
parable  is  told,  for  the  teaching  attached  to  it. 
At  this  day  if  a  teacher  of  new  doctrines  were 
arrested,  tried,  condemned,  and  beheaded,  and  a 
hundred  of  his  followers,  and  as  many  opposers, 
saw  the  execution,  and  then  if  they  and  others 
said  they  saw  the  head  restored  to  the  body  and 
again  take  full  life,  perhaps  we  who  did  not  see 
it  would  believe  their  testimony,  but  scarcely  any 
less  degree  of  evidence  would  suffice  us.  The  evi- 
dence favors  the  actual  reappearance  of  Christ 
after  his  crucifixion,  but  we  wish  that  such  cases 
might  appear  in  our  own  day,  under  more  critical 
observation;  and  if  there  are  those  who  still 
doubt,  as  we  are  told  that  ''some  doubted,"  or 
as  the  Jews  disbelieved  who  declared  that  the  dis- 
ciples had  stolen  the  body,  we  need  not  blar|ie 
them,  and  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  deny 
them  the  Christian  name.  For  what  makes  one 
a  Christian  is  not  what  he  intellectually  believes, 
but  how  far  he  takes  Jesus  as  Master  and  lives 
as  his  disciple.  Because  the  resurrection  of  our 
Lord  from  the  dead  is  unique,  because  we  cannot 
cross-examine  the  evidence  for  it,  because  we  can- 
not hear  the  other  side,  I  do  not  find  it  easy  to 
put  on  the  evidence  presented  the  full  weight 
Paul  put  upon  it,  and  died  for  its  truth.  It  has 
weight,  great  weight;    but  I  admit  that  I  find 


THE   FUTURE   LIFE  293 

myself  searching  for  other  reasons,  and  resting 
even  more  weight  upon  them. 

The  only  positive  and  conclusive  evidence  by 
which  we  might  hope  to  prove  the  persistence  of 
the  soul  after  death  must  come  through  actual 
communication  with  spirits  of  the  departed.  It 
is  much  to  be  desired  that  investigations  in  this 
direction  be  carried  on  until  a  general  conclusion 
can  be  reached.  Such  a  favorable  conclusion  I 
do  not  regard  as  hopeless.  Such  physicists  as 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and  other  scholars  who  carry 
on  the  work  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
believe  the  evidence  already  obtained  is  sufficient 
to  prove  that  disembodied  spirits  do  communicate 
with  the  living.  I  am  among  the  majority  who 
are  not  yet  convinced.  There  are  too  many 
chances  for  error,  or  imagination,  or  even  fraud; 
or,  it  may  be,  for  transferrence  of  thought  from 
the  inquirer  to  the  medium  without  any  fraud 
on  the  medium's  part.  Should  it  ever  seem  clear 
that  such  communication  takes  place  between  the 
living  and 

"  The  immortal  mind  that  hath  forsook 
Her  mansion  in  this  fleshly  nook," 

it  would  seem  almost  certain  that  such  persistence 
involves  immortality.  The  soul  that  can  survive 
for  years  or  centuries  can  almost  certainly  live 
forever,  although  the  possibility  is  not  excluded 
that  it  may  disintegrate  and  fade  away. 


294      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

We  can  hardly  say  that  telepathy,  if  it  be 
admitted  as  a  real  phenomenon,  is  a  proof  of  the 
existence  of  the  soul  separate  from  the  physical 
brain,  and  so  of  its  persistence  after  death.  Te- 
lepathy concerns  the  passage  of  thought  between 
two  distant  but  living  persons ;  and  the  two  brains 
may  be  conceived  of  as  themselves  able  to  trans- 
mit and  receive  the  current  of  thought.  Yet  this 
raises  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  soul,  and 
so  of  immortality. 

The  evidence  for  telepathy  is,  I  suppose,  con- 
siderably stronger  than  that  for  commimication 
with  the  dead.  Almost  every  family  has  some 
mysterious  story  of  its  own.  In  my  own  family 
my  father  when  a  boy  thought  himself  one  night 
in  great  danger  of  being  murdered,  and  at  that 
same  hour  his  mother  received  the  impression, 
though  many  miles  distant,  that  he  was  in  great 
danger,  and  she  rose  from  her  bed  and  pi-ayed 
for  him.  If  there  is  truth  in  telepathy  a  thought 
can  pass  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  from 
one  mind,  or  brain,  to  another  mind  or  brain. 
It  must  be  carried  by  some  medium,  and  we  know 
of  no  meditim  but  the  ether.  Now  the  sensa- 
tions we  know  of  in  the  body  are  not  carried  by 
ether,  but  by  the  nerves.  It  would  seem  likely 
that  the  thought  waves,  carried  plausibly  and 
even  probably  by  the  ether,  must  find  their  source 
of  origin  and  their  receiver  in  something  analogous 
to  ether  and  thus  able  to  act  upon  it ;  or  the  trans- 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE  295 

mitting  and  receiving  minds  must  actually  be 
products  of  ether,  just  as  is  the  case  in  wireless 
telegraphy,  or  light,  or  gravitation.  For  it  is 
the  movements  of  the  ultimate  electrons,  which 
are  merely  modifications  of  ether,  on  which  their 
power  rests.  May  we  not  then  think  of  the  mind 
as  the  transmitting  and  receiving  organ,  and  the 
ether  as  the  conductor  of  thought;  and  the  mind 
itself  as  a  spiritual  segregate  of  ether,  just  as 
electrons  are  the  physical  segregate;  so  that 
what  Paul  calls  the  spiritual  body  may  be  con- 
stituted of  ether,  and  be  the  mind  itself,  or,  if 
not,  the  ultrasubstantial  organ  through  which  the 
mind  works,  even  as  we  may  think  of  the  whole 
infinite  ether  as  the  coeternal  and  coinfinite  mys- 
tery in  and  through  which  the  infinite  God  lives 
and  works  ?  God's  mind  and  will  pervades  ether 
and  has  its  being  in  it;  and  I  know  of  no  sup- 
position more  probable  than  that  the  human  mind 
in  its  essence  and  substance  is  somehow  ethereal. 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  hints  as  much  when  he  says  in 
''The  Ether  of  Space,"  p.  123: 

We  know  that  matter  has  a  psychical  significance, 
since  it  can  constitute  brain,  which  links  together  the 
physical  and  the  psychical  worlds.  If  any  one  thinks 
that  the  ether,  with  all  its  massiveness  and  energy,  has 
probably  no  psychical  significance,  I  find  myself  imable 
to  agree  with  him. 

And  he  quotes  Clerk-Maxwell,  a  chief  master 
of  physics,  as  saying,  p.  117: 


296      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Whether  this  vast  homogeneous  expanse  of  isotropic 
matter  [the  ether]  is  fitted  not  only  to  be  a  medium  of 
physical  interaction  between  distant  bodies,  and  to  fulfil 
other  physical  functions  of  which,  perhaps,  we  have  as 
yet  no  conception,  but  also  ...  to  constitute  the  material 
organism  of  beings  exercising  functions  of  life  and  mind 
as  high  or  higher  than  ours  are  at  present — is  a  question 
far  transcending  the  limits  of  physical  speculation. 


Such  a  question  physics  cannot,  it  is  true, 
answer,  but  philosophy  and  psychology  can  raise 
it  and  perhaps  at  some  time  answer  it.  For  we 
have  but  just  begun  to  gain  a  glimpse  of  the 
mystery  of  this  insensible,  impalpable  substance, 
to  our  senses  thin  as  nothing,  yet  so  dense  and  so 
strong  that  it  holds  the  moon  from  flying  away 
from  the  earth  by  a  force  equal  to  that  of  a  coltmin 
of  steel  400  miles  in  diameter  holding  our  satellite 
to  our  earth.  We  do  not  know,  but  we  may  say 
that  if  out  of  the  infinite  and  apparently  eternal 
ether  all  material  bodies  have  been  segregated, 
it  is  possible  that  from  the  same  source,  as  from 
the  very  body  of  God,  human  souls  have  also 
been  segregated,  and  it  is  easy  to  conclude  that 
as,  when  the  body  dissolves,  each  ultimate  atom 
yet  remains  unchanged,  so  the  soul  unity  may 
also  persist  independent  of  the  body. 

Of  course,  I  have  not  been  able  to  prove  con- 
clusively the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Nobody 
can.  Most  of  us  take  it  on  faith,  without  con- 
sideration of  evidence,  or  simply  because  we  wish 


THE   FUTURE   LIFE  297 

to  believe.  But  the  wish  to  beheve  is  no  proof, 
nor  the  general  faith,  nor  the  happy  effect  of 
belief.  It  is  well,  even  obligatory  on  a  thinking 
man,  to  question  the  grounds  of  his  belief,  so 
that  he  may  believe,  or  disbelieve,  or  doubt  in- 
telligently. I  find  a  weighty  preponderance  of 
evidence  that  the  soul  survives  death. 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  future  state  ?  Every 
religion  naturally  teaches  that  it  depends  on  life 
here.  The  good  are  rewarded  and  the  evil  pun- 
ished. So  the  New  Testament — not  the  Old — ■ 
teaches.  It  teaches  by  entrancing  pictures  of  the 
glories  of  heaven,  and  by  harrowing  descriptions 
of  the  pangs  of  hell.  Yet  these  are  all  material 
figures  of  what  is  purely  spiritual.  They  need 
interpreting.  Jonathan  Edwards,  I  have  been 
credibly  informed,  told  the  Indians  to  whom  he 
preached  that  in  hell  they  would  have  molten 
lead  poured  down  their  throats.  He  did  not 
really  believe  it,  but  it  conveyed  the  true  idea  he 
wished  to  present,  just  as  when  he  pictured  to 
his  own  congregation  in  Northampton  the  soul 
of  the  wicked  held  like  a  spider  over  a  flaming 
furnace.  All  we  can  say  as  to  the  meaning  and 
authority  of  such  Biblical  figures  is  that  which 
nature  also  teaches,  that  sin  is  corrupting  and  an 
injury  and  a  fearful  loss  to  the  corrupted  soul. 
And  so  goodness  is  health  and  strength  to  the 
soul,  and  happiness  also.  As  to  the  conditions 
and  the  degree  of  either  happiness  or  misery  we 


298      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

cannot  judge  from  the  pictorial  language  of 
Scripture,  nor  from  reason  apart  from  any  ac- 
cepted revelation.  It  is  enough  to  believe  with- 
out doubt  that  it  will  be  well  with  the  righteous 
in  this  world  and  the  next,  and  that  it  will  not 
be  well  with  the  wicked.  The  material  figures 
we  may  discard,  the  lake  of  fire  with  the  stone  of 
Sisyphus,  the  gates  of  pearl  with  the  houris  of 
Mohammed. 

Nor  need  we  raise  any  questions  as  of  impor- 
tance, as  to  the  opportimity  for  repentance  and 
restoration  in  the  future  life.  It  is  enough  to 
know  that  the  soul's  will  is  free  to  change  for 
good  or  bad  in  this  world  or  the  next,  and  that 
God  is  and  always  will  be  good  and  merciful.  If 
a  soul  chooses  to  turn  from  evil  to  good,  no  matter 
when,  the  good  Father  cannot  help  accepting  him ; 
it  depends  on  the  will  of  the  soul.  So  we  cannot 
be  certain,  even  from  Scripture,  but  we  are  al- 
lowed to  indulge  the  comfortable  hope  that  some- 
how evil  will  at  last  come  to  an  end;  nothing 
more. 

If  the  soul  does  survive  death,  what  then  ? 
That  is  the  practical  question.  If  the  soul  does 
survive  death  then  we  should  live  under  the 
power  of  the  eternal  life.  This  life  is  but  a  vapor 
which  soon  blows  away.  Our  duty  is  to  live,  in 
the  language  of  the  first  of  Jonathan  Edwards's 
seventy  *' Resolutions,"  as  we  would  wish  we  had 
lived   "never  so  many  myriad  of  ages  hence." 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE  299 

It  is  profitable  to  believe  in  a  future  life;  it 
helps  us  to  live  a  good  life  during  our  little  day. 
That  is  no  reason  for  deceiving  ourselves  or 
others  as  to  immortality,  but  if  for  satisfying 
reasons  we  believe  in  immortality,  that  belief 
should  in  all  prudence  affect  our  character.  But 
the  belief  in  immortality  is  not  in  itself  essential 
to  goodness;  it  is  only  helpful  to  goodness.  And 
goodness  is  the  only  essential  thing,  not  any  be- 
lief whether  in  immortality  or  in  God  himself. 
So  Paul  went  too  far,  spoke  too  hastily,  when  he 
fell  short  of  the  best  Stoic  philosophy  and  said: 
''If  the  dead  are  not  raised,  let  us  eat  and  drink, 
for  to-morrow  we  die."  Whether  the  dead  are 
raised  or  not  the  duty  remains  the  same.  We 
are  not  brutes,  living  only  to  eat  and  drink  and 
escape  pain.  We  have  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong;  the  consequences  need  not  control  us. 
To  love  others  and  to  sacrifice  or  even  die  for 
them  is  right,  is  beautiful;  and  the  obligations 
of  character  do  not  rest  on  the  will  or  even  on 
the  existence  of  God,  but  on  essential  rightness. 
To  be  sure,  many  of  us,  apart  from  belief  in  God 
and  the  future  'state,  will  take  the  Epicurean  view 
which  Paul  so  hastily  expressed;  for  morals  apart 
from  religion  are  very  weak.  Even  backed  by 
religion  morals  are  fearfully  weak.  They  cannot 
prevent  war.  So  all  religions,  except  the  Hebrew, 
have  made  much  of  the  future  life,  and  have 
created  innumerable  heavens  and  hells  to  attract 


300      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

to  virtue  and  to  deter  from  vice;  and  when,  to 
us  who  have  reason  to  beheve  that  the  death  of 
the  body  is  but  an  incident  in  the  Hfe  of  the  soul, 
our  Lord  presents  the  subHme  panorama  of  the 
final  judgment,  his  ''Come,  ye  blessed,"  draws  us 
with  the  cords  of  love;  and  his  ''Depart,  ye 
cursed"  adds  multiple  intensity  of  force  to  our 
resolve  to  escape  the  fruit  and  penalty  of  sin. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  ESSENCE   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

WHAT  I  have  to  say  on  this  subject  is 
so  simple,  as  it  seems  to  me,  so  primary, 
so  self-evident  in  its  truth,  that  I  might 
be  inclined  to  doubt  whether  it  is  worth  while  to 
say  it.  Yet  simple  truth  is  the  most  important 
of  all ;  and  truth  is  likely  to  be  simpler  than  error 
and  more  easily  understood.  If  I  have  a  sore 
tooth,  that  fact  is  simple  and  easily  comprehended ; 
what  is  hard  to  comprehend  is  the  error  which  re- 
quires me  to  believe  that  it  does  not  ache,  and  to 
will  away  the  pain. 

In  considering  the  essence  of  Christianity,  we 
must  begin  with  fimdamental  things.  Now,  there 
are  two  big  words  that  have  to  do  with  the  con- 
duct of  life,  one  true,  the  other  right.  They  give 
us  the  nouns  truth  and  duty.  They  belong  to  two 
different  domains,  the  intelligence  and  the  con- 
science. One  considers  what  you  must  believe, 
the  other  what  you  must  do. 

Both  of  these  domains,  truth  and  duty,  are  of 
infinite  importance,  and  yet  one  is  vastly  more 
important  than  the  other;  for  one  infinite  can  be 

301 


302      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

bigger  than  another.  An  infinite  plane  is  infinitely 
larger  than  an  infinite  line,  and  an  infinite  of 
three  dimensions  is  infinitely  larger  than  one  of 
two.  The  value  of  truth  is  measureless;  but  the 
value  of  duty  is  measureless  in  a  higher  category. 

The  fact  that  the  value  of  duty  is  higher  than 
that  of  truth  is  not  one  to  be  argued  or  proved. 
It  is  only  to  be  asserted  and  claimed.  If  one  does 
not  see  that  moral  character  is  better,  higher, 
than  intellectual  ability,  then  let  him  live  in  his 
blindness;  he  cannot  be  cured.  If  there  was  once 
an  English  philosopher  and  judge  who  was  rightly 
called  both  ''wisest"  and  "meanest  of  mankind," 
then,  in  putting  him  up  or  putting  him  down  we 
fix  our  own  status  in  the  realm  of  values.  What 
is  mean  degrades  vastly  more  than  what  is  wise 
can  lift,  for  rightness  of  conduct  is  vastly  more 
worth  than  correctness  of  belief. 

(i)  The  science  of  the  right  is  what  we  call 
ethics.  It  embraces  the  whole  domain  of  duty. 
It  includes  duty  to  oneself,  to  one's  friends,  to 
one's  enemies,  to  all  men,  to  the  beasts  below  us, 
to  angels,  to  God,  to  all  things  and  all  beings, 
from  dust  to  Deity.  It  is  ethics  that  makes  a 
maid  sweep  a  room  clean ;  it  was  ethics  that  made 
Abraham  feed  the  angels;  it  was  ethics  that  ac- 
cepted Gethsemane  and  the  cross. 

Ethics  is  a  bigger  word  than  religion,  for  it  in- 
cludes it.  If  ethics  is  the  science  of  duty,  it  em- 
braces all  duties  to  all  beings,  under  all  relations. 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY    303 

But  that  part  of  duty  which  relates  to  God  we 
call  religion.  Religion  is,  then,  a  subdivision,  a 
large  subdivision,  under  ethics. 

(2)  The  science  of  truth  we  call  philosophy.  As 
ethics  asked  only  one  question :  What  is  right  ? 
so  philosophy  asks  only  one  question:  What  is 
true?  Its  domain  covers  the  whole  field  of  fact. 
It  makes  no  exception — it  asks  on  every  possible 
subject,  material,  spiritual,  human,  divine,  for  the 
exact  truth  in  all  its  relations.  It  reaches  in  its 
investigation  from  the  minutest  corpuscle  or  elec- 
tron, through  all  the  waves  of  infinite  ether, 
through  all  the  phases  of  animal  and  human  in- 
tellect, up  to  the  very  throne  of  God.  It  has  its 
parts  and  divisions.  That  section  of  philosophy 
which  has  to  do  with  God,  we  call  theology.  It  is 
a  part  of  philosophy,  as  religion  is  a  part  of 
ethics. 

Now,  let  this  be  kept  in  mind,  that  religion  is 
a  section  of  ethics,  as  theology  is  a  section  of 
philosophy.  But  before  reaching  our  narrower 
topic,  which  is  the  essence  of  Christianity,  let  us 
consider  ethics  and  philosophy  a  little  further. 

Ethics,  the  science  of  duty,  has  one  central 
rule  out  of  which  all  duties  are  evolved — the  rule 
of  love,  or  altruism,  if  you  will  call  it  so.  Do  all 
the  kindly,  affectionate,  self-sacrificing  service  you 
can  for  your  fellow  beings.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
expand  on  this  subject,  only  to  state  the  central 
principle,  which  is  love  for  beings  in  general,  and 


304      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

which  directs  the  expression  of  that  love  to  our 
fellow  beings  under  rules  that  relate  to  their 
amount  of  being  and  our  relations  to  them,  and 
our  opportunities  of  service. 

But  it  is  not  at  present  possible  to  reduce  phi- 
losophy, the  science  of  truth,  to  a  corresponding 
general  formula.  I  have  said  that  the  central 
law  of  ethics  is  the  love  of  the  me  for  the  not- 
me.  I  suspect  that  the  basal  problem  of  philos- 
ophy, the  answer  to  which  involves  everything 
in  the  sphere  of  the  knowledge  of  truth,  of  fact, 
is  the  question:  What  is  the  me,  the  mind,  and 
what  is  matter?  In  the  answer  to  this  philo- 
sophical question  all  knowledge  and  science  are 
involved.  But  we  do  not  yet  know.  Lord  Ray- 
leigh,  the  highest  British  authority  in  the  physics, 
especially  of  electricity,  was  taken  by  an  acquain- 
tance to  see  the  operation  of  a  very  large  electrical 
plant.  The  director  of  the  works,  who  had  failed 
to  catch  his  name  and  to  understand  who  he 
was,  showed  him  ever3rthing,  and  explained  it  as 
if  his  visitor,  who  was  far  his  superior  in  knowl- 
edge, were  but  a  novice.  At  the  end  of  the  in- 
terview Lord  Rayleigh,  who  had  listened  in 
silence,  turned  to  his  guide  and  asked:  ''What  is 
electricity?"  *'I  do  not  know,"  was  the  answer. 
"Nor  do  I,"  replied  the  great  scientist.  Nor  do 
we  yet  know  what  mind  is,  nor  what  matter  is. 
We  are  not  settled  on  monism  or  dualism;  on 
realism    or   idealism;    on    substance  or   energy. 


THE  ESSENCE   OF   CHRISTIANITY     305 

This  is  the  problem  equally  of  psychology  and  of 
physics.  We  are  learning  new  things  that  sur- 
prise us,  of  new  chemical  atoms,  argon,  helium, 
crypton,  neon,  xenon;  of  subatoms,  corpuscular 
electrons  a  thousand  times  smaller  than  the  atoms 
of  hydrogen ;  of  vortices  and  of  ether ;  something 
we  know  of  their  properties,  and  we  guess  more, 
but  what  they  are  we  know  not.  The  essence  of 
matter  is  beyond  our  ken. 

And  so  is  the  essence  of  mind.  We  know  some- 
thing of  its  activities;  we  have  analyzed  them 
almost  exhaustively,  and  are  now  beginning  to 
study  their  relation  to  the  nervous  system.  But 
how  does  mind  work  apart  from  matter  ?  Can  it 
so  work  ?  What  minds  are  there  ?  Is  there  an 
all-embracing  mind,  of  which  smaller  minds  are 
a  part,  as  the  physicists  now  tell  us,  that  there 
is  an  all-embracing  ether  in  which  the  last  atoms 
of  matter  may  be  such  revolving  rings  as  an  ex- 
pert smoker  puffs  from  his  mouth  ?  We  do  not 
know. 

Now,  let  us  come  to  our  topic,  which  is  the 
essence  of  Christianity.  Christianity  must  have 
its  relations  to  these  two  departments,  one  of 
ethics,  the  other  of  philosophy. 

Now,  Christianity's  definition  of  duty  is  precisely 
that  of  ethics.  It  is  given  by  Christ;  it  is  given 
by  Paul.  It  is  the  law  of  love.  ''Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,"  ''and  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself";    "The  greatest  of  these  is 


3o6      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

love."  There  is  no  difference  between  ethics  and 
Christianity  on  this  subject. 

Then,  what  is  the  use  of  Christianity  ?  How 
does  Christianity  bring  any  increment  to  general 
ethics  ? 

This,  that  Christianity  taught  ethics  its  an- 
swer. This  is  Christianity's  patent,  this  doctrine 
of  love. 

Judaism  has  a  teaching  of  love,  but  this  is 
not  its  predominant  note.  The  chief  demand  of 
Judaism  is  righteousness,  what  we  commonly 
call  morality  between  man  and  man.  This  is  all 
there  is,  so  far  as  duties  of  man  to  man  are  con- 
cerned, in  the  Ten  Commandments.  It  is  simple 
righteousness,  justice,  morality.  "Honor  thy 
father  and  thy  mother,"  the  only  positive  com- 
mand. *'Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  "Thou  shalt  not 
commit  adultery,"  "Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness,"  "Thou  shalt  not 
covet."  That  is  all,  no  love,  not  even  mercy. 
The  answer  to  the  question  of  duty  is  given  with 
special  care  in  several  passages  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. "What  doth  the  Lord  thy  God  require  of 
thee  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God?"  Here  justice  is  put 
first,  and  mercy,  a  form  of  love,  pity  for  the  suf- 
fering, is  given  more  than  usual  prominence  as 
next  to  it.  In  the  fifteenth  Psalm  the  question 
of  duty  is  formally  asked:  "Lord,  who  shall  abide 
in  thy  tabernacle?"  And  the  answer  is  very  il- 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY    307 

luminating  as  to  the  thought  of  Judaism  on 
ethics.  The  answer  is:  ''He  that  walketh  up- 
rightly," "worketh  righteousness,"  "speakeththe 
truth,"  "backbiteth  not,"  "nor  doeth  evil  to  his 
neighbor,  nor  taketh  up  a  reproach  against  his 
neighbor,"  by  whom  "a  vile  person  is  contemned," 
who  "sweareth  to  his  own  heart  and  changeth 
not,"  who  "putteth  not  out  his  money  to  usury, 
nor  taketh  a  reward  against  the  innocent."  We 
are  told  that,  "he  that  doeth  these  things  shall 
never  be  moved."  Here  not  even  that  form  of 
self-sacrificing  love  which  we  call  mercy  is  in- 
cluded in  the  list  of  the  merits  which  assure  the 
favor  of  God. 

The  eighteenth  chapter  of  Ezekiel  is  perhaps 
the  most  magnificent  statement  of  Jewish  ethics 
to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  of  im- 
mense value  for  its  vivid  and  emphatic  state- 
ment of  the  value  of  individual  personality.  It 
is  the  chapter  which  tells  us  that  no  man  shall 
be  condemned  for  the  sins  of  his  father,  and  no 
man  accepted  for  his  father's  virtue,  but  "the 
soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."  Over  and  over  is 
repeated  the  list  of  the  virtues  that  bring  the 
divine  favor  and  the  sins  that  God  condemns. 
Here  is  the  catalogue  of  virtues,  so  far  as  duties 
to  one's  fellow  man  are  concerned,  and  they  are 
mostly  negative.  First:  "He  hath  not  defiled 
his  neighbor's  wife,"  has  done  no  injury  to  the 
primary  law  of  chastity.     Then  he   "hath  not 


3o8      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

oppressed  any";  then  he  "hath  restored  to  the 
debtor  his  pledge";  then  he  ''hath  spoiled  none 
by  violence."  Then  comes  an  act  of  love  in  the 
form  of  mercy,  he  "hath  given  his  bread  to  the 
hungry,  and  hath  covered  the  naked  with  a  gar- 
ment." Then  the  prophet  returns  to  acts  of 
justice:  "He  that  hath  not  given  forth  upon 
usury,  neither  hath  taken  any  increase,  that 
hath  withdrawn  his  hand  from  iniquity,  hath 
executed  true  judgment  between  man  and  man." 
Of  such  a  man  it  is  said:  "He  is  just,  he  shall 
surely  live,  saith  the  Lord."  Doubtless  such  a 
man  will  live  under  any  dispensation,  old  or  new; 
but  what  I  am  here  concerned  with  is  the  emphasis 
put  upon  justice,  righteousness,  honest  dealing 
with  one's  neighbor,  and  the  scantier  recognition 
of  the  law  of  love.  This  is  the  clear  ethical  dis- 
tinction between  the  Old  Testament  and  the 
New,  that  where  the  Old  gives  the  primacy  to 
righteousness,  the  New  gives  it  to  love. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  discovery,  we  may 
say,  of  love  by  Christianity  as  the  supreme  law 
of  right,  is  equally,  or  more  clearly  seen  to  be 
true  if  we  contrast  the  ethics  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment with  the  best  ethics  of  Greece  or  Rome, 
or  India  or  China.  The  greatest  philosopher  of 
Greece,  Aristotle,  wrote  a  special  treatise,  indeed 
two,  on  ethics.  He  declares  that  happiness  is 
the  chief  end  of  man's  existence,  but  that  hap- 
piness consists  not  in  pleasure,  wealth,  honor,  but 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY    309 

in  a  life  of  sound  reason,  or  virtue.  Virtue  seeks 
out  the  mean  between  extremes  of  conduct.  The 
highest  happiness,  and  so  virtue,  ''consists  in  the 
harmonious  exercise  of  man's  highest  powers; 
and,  since  the  chief  of  these  are  intellectual,  the 
truest  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  the  life  of  con- 
templation, or  philosophic  thought." 

I  cannot  need  to  show  how  different  all  this  is, 
with  its  centring  on  self-culture,  from  the  self- 
forgetfulness  of  Christianity,  which  seeketh  not 
her  own.  A  study  of  the  ethical  writings  of 
Cicero  would  show  a  similar  self-centred  virtue, 
which  puts  justice  before  love;  and  the  ethics  of 
Buddha  and  Confucius  are  even  further  below  that 
of  Jesus. 

Thus  it  w^as  that  Christianity  first  taught 
ethics  its  first  principle  of  love.  In  doing  this, 
it  showed  that  righteousness — justice,  common 
morals — is  not  enough.  Something  more  vital  is 
needed,  something  more  positive  and  forceful. 
Not  to  have  done  wrong  is  something,  but  it  has 
in  it  nothing  really  divine.  To  do  justice  is  but  the 
neutral  level  of  morals,  not  bad  and  hardly  good. 

There  is  a  Russian  tale  of  a  woman  who  died 
and  was  sent  to  hell.  She  v/as  astonished  and 
angry  to  find  herself  there.  So  she  cried  and 
screamed  and  called  aloud  to  Saint  Peter  that  he 
had  made  a  great  mistake  in  sending  her  there. 
"I  don't  belong  here,"  she  shouted;  "I  have  never 
done  anything  wrong,  I  have  never  injured  any- 


3IO      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

body."  She  raised  such  a  distiirbance  that  at 
last  Peter  heard  her,  and  sent  down  a  messenger 
to  learn  what  was  the  matter.  ''I  don't  belong 
here,"  she  cried,  "I  have  never  done  anybody 
any  wrong."  ''But  what  good  thing,  what  kind 
thing  have  you  done?"  asked  the  spirit.  After 
long  thinking  she  remembered:  "I  once  gave  a 
poor  woman  a  carrot. ' '  ' '  That  is  something, ' '  said 
the  spirit,  "I  will  go  up  and  see  if  anything  can 
be  done  for  you."  Shortly  after  a  carrot  was 
seen  let  down  by  a  cord,  and  it  came  to  where 
she  was.  She  seized  it  and  was  drawn  up.  She 
had  got  well  up  toward  heaven  when  she  felt  a 
tugging  at  her  skirts,  and  she  looked  down  and 
saw  two  spirits  holding  on  to  her  clothes  and 
being  drawn  up  with  her.  She  cried  to  them: 
*  *  Let  alone  of  my  clothes  !  This  is  my  carrot !  It 
won't  hold  us  all !"  Just  then  the  carrot  broke, 
and  back  she  fell  into  hell;  and  the  angels  who 
were  looking  over  the  wall  of  heaven  said :  *  'What 
a  pity,  and  she  came  so  near  succeeding." 

Christianity  demands  positive  love,  nothing 
less,  and  with  that  nothing  more.  It  is  not 
enough  that  one  should  aim  for  the  full  develop- 
ment of  his  nature;  that  is  essential  selfishness. 
It  is  a  good  part  of  education  to  develop  and 
train  one's  faculties  to  their  utmost  power,  but 
Christianity  requires  that  this  be  done  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  owner  of  the  faculties,  but  that 
the  faculties  may  be  fitted  to  do  more  service  for 


THE  ESSENCE   OF   CHRISTIANITY    311 

other  people.  Thus  culture  is  not  the  end  of 
Christianity.  It  is  good  as  a  means  of  service, 
but  is  not  the  true  end  in  itself.  Nor  even  is  it 
enough  to  make  commimion  with  God  here,  or 
enjoyment  of  him  forever  in  another  world,  the 
chief  end  of  life.  Even  that  is  selfish,  and  is  not 
the  dictate  of  anything  higher  than  self-love. 
The  answer  which  Christianity  makes  to  the 
central  question  of  ethics  is  love,  and  this  an- 
swer is  its  glory  and  its  justification.  If  it  could 
not  give  this  answer,  it  would  have  nothing  new, 
nothing  worth  while.  Its  crowning  gift  to  man 
is  expressed  in  its  great  law  of  love  to  being  in 
general,  in  proportion  to  its  amount  of  being. 
This  rule  requires  supreme  love  to  God,  and  love 
to  one's  neighbor  as  to  oneself. 

Now,  if  Christianity  requires  this  love  supreme, 
it  requires  a  resolve  to  begin  such  a  life.  This  is 
conversion.  It  is  what  conversion  means.  If 
you  call  it  repentance,  it  is  sorrow  that  you  have 
not  lived  the  life  of  love,  and  a  determination  to 
begin  it.  If  you  call  it  faith,  it  is  accepting  the 
law  of  love  from  God  and  his  son  Jesus  Christ, 
with  the  assurance  that  you  will  thus  be  well- 
pleasing  in  his  sight.  Faith  means  the  rejecting 
of  all  dependence  on  formal  service,  or  intellectual 
creed,  and  the  submission  of  the  soul  to  the  simple 
love  of  God.  If  you  call  it  regeneration,  it  is  still 
nothing  but  the  love  of  God  shed  abroad  in  your 
heart  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 


312      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Anything  that  brings  this  resolve  of  love  is 
sufficient,  and  is  essential  if  not  complete  Chris- 
tianity. All  religions  that  have  blindly  secured 
it  are  so  far  good.  Plato  tells  the  beautiful  story 
of  the  choice  of  Hercules,  the  mighty  hero  whose 
twelve  labors  were  for  the  clearing  of  the  earth 
of  its  evils,  for  the  use  of  man.  His  choice  was 
between  a  vile  love  and  a  divine  love.  The  story 
is  a  Christian  one,  although  it  comes  out  of  pagan 
times,  one  of  the  rare  previsions  of  Christianity 
which  made  the  early  Christian  fathers  willing 
to  count  Plato  almost  with  the  best  of  the  He- 
brew prophets.  Hercules  comes  nearer  to  being 
a  Christian  than  any  other  of  the  gods  or  demigods 
of  classic  antiquity,  unless  it  be  Prometheus,  and 
Plato's  parable  would  put  him  level  with  the 
patriarchs  of  Jewish  story.  But  what  Greek 
philosophy  or  ethics  teaches  occasionally  and  im- 
perfectly, Christianity  formulates,  as  the  rule  of 
life,  and  most  successfully  persuades  to  this  con- 
version. 

Love  as  law  of  life  involves  not  only  the  be- 
ginning of  the  life  of  love  in  conversion,  but  it  ac- 
complishes and  rules  that  life  in  service.  Religion 
is  service.  It  is  not  dreaming,  it  is  not  com- 
munion with  God ;  it  is  not  anything  merely  pas- 
sive or  receptive,  beautiful  as  such  mystic  expe- 
rience may  be.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  a  youth 
in  his  years  of  preparation  for  service,  or  a  man  in 
his  hours  of  rest  from  service,  should  not  delectate 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY    313 

himself  in  the  thought  of  God's  love  for  him,  and 
his  love  for  God ;  but  it  is  the  ebullition  of  loving 
service,  and  not  the  fomentation  of  spiritual 
caloric  for  the  enjoyment  of  its  warmth,  not  the 
holding  of  the  hands  up  to  the  divine  flame  for 
the  sake  of  its  heat ;  nor  is  it  even  the  communion 
of  prayer  that  is  the  chief  fruit  of  love.  The  love 
of  Christ  constraineth  us.  The  beggar  in  the 
German  story,  who  asked  of  Peter  at  the  door  of 
heaven  that  he  might  only  have  a  seat  just  in- 
side the  gate,  where  he  might  ever  look  in  the 
face  of  the  blessed  Lord,  wished  what  might  be 
expected  of  a  suffering,  weary  beggar.  But  it 
was  a  truer  conception  of  life  for  this  world  and 
the  next  which  saidf 

''His  state 
Is  kingly;  thousands  at  his  bidding  speed, 
And  past  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest. 
They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 

They  serve  while  waiting  the  next  orders  of  service. 
This  makes  Christianity  a  missionary  religion. 
It  is  bound  to  do  its  best  for  the  world.  It  will 
not  only  teach  this  world  what  is  true,  but  its 
first  purpose  is  to  make  the  world  good,  to  do 
it  good  in  every  possible  way.  Mohammedanism 
and  Buddhism  have  been  missionary  religions, 
but  neither  of  them  has  tried  to  convert  the  world 
because  it  loved  the  world.  The  followers  of 
Mohammed  wished  dominion  for  their  faith,  and 
there  was  little  love  in  the  choice  given,  of  the 


314      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

Koran  or  the  sword;  and  the  Buddhist  ideal  was 
not  that  of  service,  but  of  blessed  absorption  in 
the  ocean  of  God. 

We  have  considered  Christianity  as  a  religion, 
which  has  to  do  with  duty,  and  so  as  a  sec- 
tion of  ethics,  but  which  has  brought  ethics  to 
the  understanding  of  itself,  and  has  taught  it 
its  own  central  law  of  love.  We  now  will  con- 
sider Christianity  as  a  philosophy,  that  is,  its 
theology. 

But  this  is  the  smaller  part  of  our  study  of  the 
essence  of  Christianity.  Christ  and  Paul  put  love, 
duty,  and  religion  before  philosophy  or  theology. 
And  as  it  is  the  smaller,  so  it  is  also  the  harder 
part  of  our  study  of  Christianity.  We  recall  that 
it  was  harder  to  get  a  central,  unifying  principle 
of  truth,  which  is  what  philosophy  has  to  deal 
with,  than  it  was  to  find  such  a  unifying  principle 
for  duty. 

But  Christianity  being  a  religion  of  duty,  rather 
than  of  truth,  its  philosophy  centres  on  the  same 
principle  as  does  its  religion,  namely,  on  love, 
while  branching  out  into  other  realms  of  truth. 

(i)  Christianity  believes  in  one  God,  whose 
primary  quality  is  love.  Judaism  had  discovered 
the  oneness  of  God,  and  his  natural  attributes, 
his  power  and  his  wisdom,  or  even  his  moral  at- 
tributes of  justice  and  holiness;  but  it  had  not  dis- 
covered love  as  his  convincing  quality.  It  made 
him  a  ' '  jealous  God, ' '  a  national  God.   Christianity 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY     315 

makes  him  the  Father  of  all  creatures  which  he 
has  made.  Its  prayer  to  God  is  to  "Our  Father." 
It  makes  him  the  Father  not  of  a  family  or  a  race, 
but  of  all  men.  It  gives  God  no  choice  of  loving. 
He  must  love.  It  is  his  essential  nature.  It  is 
binding  on  God,  just  as  it  is  binding  on  us,  only 
infinitely  more  so. 

(2)  Christianity  puts  every  man  under  obliga- 
tion to  love;  and  this  means  individual  responsi- 
bility, with  all  its  corollaries  of  free  will,  and  all 
the  equal  obligation  of  service  to  be  given  and 
received;  which  implies  the  democratic  unity  or 
equality  of  the  race.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself."  This  gives  us  the  lesson  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  If  God  is  "our  Father," 
then  all  are  one. 

And  all  brethren  having  equal  responsibility  for 
love  and  service,  each  soul  must  be  regenerated 
for  itself.  There  is  no  salvation  by  wholesale,  by 
races,  by  birth.  The  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall 
die,  and  the  soul  that  repenteth  shall  live.  But 
this  conversion,  this  acceptance  of  the  law  of 
love,  must  come  in  some  way,  whether  by  educa- 
tion or  catastrophe  is  not  essential.  It  may  come 
in  sudden  wise,  under  an  overwhelming  view  of 
the  evil  of  sin,  and  the  love  of  Christ,  or  it  may 
be  that 

"Through  no  disturbance  of  my  soul, 
Or  strong  compunction  in  me  wrought 
I  supplicate  for  thy  control, 
But  in  the  quietude  of  thought." 


3i6      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

How  it  comes  is  not  essential;  but  that  repen- 
tance come  some  way  is  imperative,  both  as  reH- 
gion  and  as  theology. 

(3)  Closely  connected  with  this  principle  is 
the  fiirther  teaching  that  Christianity  must  be 
a  spiritual  and  not  a  formal  ceremonial  religion. 
As  it  is  not  national,  but  individual,  so  it  is  not 
priestly  but  spiritual.  It  accepts  God  as  a  spirit, 
who  must  therefore  be  worshipped  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  Christianity  may  use  days,  places,  and 
rites,  but  they  are  no  part  of  essential  Christianity. 
Christianity  finds  use  for  the  Sabbath,  but  the 
Sabbath  is  not  a  part  of  Christianity.  Christianity 
honors  the  church,  but  can  exist  without  the 
church.  Christianity  has  two  or  more  sacraments, 
but  can  dispense  with  all  of  them,  and  still  be 
good  Christianity,  for  Christianity  is  not  a  body 
but  a  spirit,  and  that  spirit  is  love. 

(4)  Christianity  teaches  a  future  life.  This 
doctrine  is  not  peculiar  to  Christianity,  and  does 
not  grow  out  of  love.  A  person  might  believe  in 
annihilation,  and  yet  be  a  very  good  Christian. 
But  the  doctrine  of  the  future  life  is  of  great  im- 
portance to  Christianity,  for  comfort  and  for  im- 
pulse and  inspiration,  and  it  is  supported  by  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord. 

(5)  Christianity  gets  its  name  from  Christ,  as 
one  sent  from  God.  Therefore  Christianity  teaches 
discipleship  of  Christ,  who  brought  to  man  all 
this  doctrine  of  love.  Of  course,  therefore,  Christi- 
anity teaches   biographical   facts   about   Christ; 


THE  ESSENCE   OF   CHRISTIANITY    317 

but  we  must  distinguish  the  important  from  the 
non-important.  It  is  interesting,  but  not  im- 
portant, that  he  came  as  a  child.  Paul  never 
speaks  of  the  virgin  birth,  perhaps  never  heard 
of  it,  as  the  Gospels  had  not  been  written  in  his 
time.  Christ's  miracles  are  interesting,  and  throw 
much  light  on  his  character,  but  they  have  not 
the  importance  of  his  teachings.  Those  teach- 
ings must  be  equally  valuable  if  Jesus  had  per- 
formed no  miracles  or  had  come  to  the  earth  as 
others  come,  or  had  come  full  grown.  These  bio- 
graphical facts,  however  interesting  and  however 
important,  are  not  essential  to  the  substance  of 
Christianity. 

(6)  Christ  died  on  the  cross.  This  is  a  very 
important  fact  and  very  useful  to  Christianity, 
and  yet  Christianity  would  exist  if  Christ  had 
died  as  others  die.  God  would  still  have  been  a 
loving  Father,  and  could  have  forgiven  just  the 
same.  We  are  not  to  look  on  the  death  of  Christ 
as  propitiating  the  Father,  who  needs  nobody  to 
excite  or  encourage  his  love.  No  expiating  sac- 
rifice is  needed,  for  God  is  abundantly  able  to 
forgive,  out  of  his  own  store  of  love.  Christ's 
death  is  the  crown  of  his  life  and  teaching,  proves 
his  genuineness,  and  is  a  power  to  draw  us  unto 
a  life  like  his. 

(7)  Christ's  resurrection  is  of  even  more  im- 
portance, because  on  it  is  based  a  considerable 
part  of  our  faith  in  the  future  life;   and  it  was  of 


3i8      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

even  greater  importance,  for  this  reason,  to  the 
early  church.  A  beHef  in  a  future  Hfe  of  blessed- 
ness for  the  good,  and  in  which  persistent  wrong 
will  suffer  retribution,  is  of  no  little  help,  espe- 
cially in  the  beginning  of  a  life  of  self-sacrificing 
love,  for  in  it  self-love  adds  its  aid  to  disinterested 
love;  but  a  belief  in  the  future  life,  and  so  in 
Christ's  resurrection,  is  not  absolutely  essential  to 
Christian  character,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is 
the  really  essential  thing  in  Christianity;  for 
only  the  life  of  love  is  essential. 

(8)  Primitive  Christianity  taught  that  Jesus 
was  the  expected  Messiah,  sent  not  only  to  be 
the  revealer  of  God,  but  his  representative  as 
King  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  that  he  would 
return  speedily  to  reign.  But  he  did  not  thus 
return  as  he  was  expected.  We  understand  the 
kingdom  of  God  better  now,  and  we  make  it  a 
spiritual  kingdom.  But  Christianity  equally  be- 
lieves, in  this  present  day,  in  its  coming  supremacy 
in  the  world,  and  works  for  it.  This  is  one  of  the 
respects  in  which  modern  Christianity  has  im- 
proved on  primitive  Christianity. 

(9)  Early  Christianity  was  satisfied  to  make 
Jesus  the  Christ,  the  expected  Messiah  who  should 
make  all  things  right.  Very  soon  they  began  to 
philosophize  about  their  Lord ;  and  following  that 
familiar  philosophy  which  separated  and  objecti- 
fied attributes,  as  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs  the 
wisdom  of  God  is  spoken  of  as  a  separate  per- 


THE  ESSENCE   OF  CHRISTIANITY    319 

sonified  existence,  and  as  in  the  prevalent  Greek 
philosophy  of  Plato  and  Philo  the  "idea,"  or 
the  "pattern,"  of  the  Book  of  Hebrews  was 
made  to  have  a  separate  existence  from  its  phys- 
ical embodiment,  so  the  early  Christians  identi- 
fied the  wisdom  of  God,  his  creative  Logos,  with 
Jesus,  and  held  that  this  attribute  had  a  sep- 
arate pre-existence  and  "was  made  flesh"  in  the 
person  of  the  Christ.  Out  of  this  grew  most 
naturally  a  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  indwelling 
Spirit  of  God  being  added  to  the  Word  of  God. 
But  a  doctrine  of  the  inner  constitution  of  the 
Godhead  is  not  and  cannot  be  essential  to  Chris- 
tianity, for  it  is  something  on  which  we  can  have  no 
knowledge.  One  may  equal  three,  and  three  equal 
one,  in  heavenly  or  transcendental  mathemat- 
ics, but  this  is  quite  beyond  our  understanding 
or  possible  research.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  not  essential,  because  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
love.  We  do  not  even  know  whether  it  is  true. 
But  we  do  know  that  the  damnatory  clauses  of  the 
Athanasian  creed  on  this  subject  are  false,  be- 
cause they  directly  contradict  the  supremacy  of 
love  in  the  realm  of  God.  Christianity  claims  for 
Christ  that  in  him  dwelt  the  fulness  of  God;  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  as  he  is  described  to  us,  as  his 
teachings  have  come  to  us,  all  of  God  that  he 
could  hold  was  in  him.  He  taught  God,  because 
he  felt  and  held  the  love  of  God  as  no  other  man 
had  ever  done  or  had  approached  doing. 


320      WHAT   I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

But  the  essential  thing  is  not  the  person  of 
Christ,  not  even  the  death  of  Christ,  but  the 
teachings  of  Christ.  It  is  in  these  that  his  divinity 
inheres.  And  they  are  divine  not  because  he 
taught  them,  but  because  they  are  true;  and  the 
whole  of  it  is  love.  Whoever  gets  this  love,  and 
however  he  gets  it,  is  an  essential  Christian,  no 
matter  how  many  false  beliefs  he  has  about  Christ, 
and  no  matter  if  he  never  heard  of  Christ,  and 
calls  himself  a  Jew  or  a  Moslem,  or  is  a  wor- 
shipper of  a  million  gods,  as  Christians  believe  in 
a  million  angels  and  devils. 

Yet  remember  the  primacy  of  Christianity,  be- 
cause love  and  life  and  truth  came  through  Jesus 
Christ.  Buddhism  does  not  teach  this  doctrine, 
nor  did  Plato  or  Cicero.  Socrates,  the  best  of 
them  all,  gadfly  of  the  state,  ends  his  life  with 
a  cock  to  Esculapius.  The  advent  of  Christianity 
is  the  marvel  and  the  flower  of  both  philosophy 
and  religion.  It  was  the  awakening  of  both 
religion  and  philosophy  to  a  consciousness  of 
themselves.  That  man  only  is  a  Christian  who 
makes  love  the  inner  principle  and  the  outflowing 
current  of  his  life,  and  thereby  chooses  to  be  made 
a  disciple  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE   SUM   OF  THE  WHOLE   MATTER 

THE  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is  this :  Reason 
is  the  last  arbiter ;  our  own  reason,  our  in- 
dividual reason,  my  reason,  nobody  else's. 
There  are  various  sources  of  authority,  Bible,  or 
church,  or  God,  but  each  one  must  be  tested  by 
our  personal  reason  before  it  is  believed.  We 
are  all  of  us  at  bottom  pure  rationalists,  cannot 
help  being.  What  God  is,  whether  there  be  a 
God,  we  must  decide  by  the  best  reason  we  have. 
If  we  are  made  in  the  image  of  God  that  image 
is  in  reason,  not  in  body;  and  our  little  reason 
can  and  must  get  some  true  view  of  God,  just 
as  our  little,  blinking,  myopic  eyes  can  truly,  if 
imperfectly,  descry  the  infinite  spangled  universe. 
Reason  may  see  faintly,  even  erringly,  but  it  is 
all  we  have  to  guide  us.  It  may  rest  on  custom, 
tradition,  social  inheritance,  the  teachings  from 
childhood  of  those  whom  we  think  possessed  of 
more  knowledge  and  judgment  than  we,  but  all 
our  beliefs  rest  on  such  reason  as  we  have. 

We  may  travel  beyond  our  reason;  we  may 
imagine,  or  guess,  or  wish,  but  on  these  we  can 
never  rest.    Poets,  to  tell  a  pretty  story  or  point 

321 


322      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

a  lesson,  have  invented  lovely  or  strange  tales  of 
gods  and  goddesses,  and  what  they  have  told  as 
story  whole  nations  have  taken  as  verities  coming 
from  the  fathers  who  had  better  vision,  and  made 
a  religion  of  them,  and  their  children  have  be- 
lieved them  true,  until  wiser  men  have  torn  away 
the  pomp  and  gold  of  gay  religions  and  have 
found  the  true  God  enshrouded  there,  and  have 
worshipped  him  with  Platonist  adoration,  or 
they  have  found  only  a  stock  of  wood  under  the 
gilded  veneer  and  have  burned  the  wooden  sham 
of  their  faith.  It  is  reason  that  has  made  them 
find  faith  under  the  false  finery,  or  reason  that 
has  made  them  despair.  It  is  by  reason  that  we 
too  must  test  the  Bible  as  well  as  the  Vedas, 
Moses  as  well  as  Hesiod  or  Zarathustra.  If  we 
find  in  our  Bible  anything  of  cosmogony  or  his- 
tory or  morals  that  does  not  approve  itself  to 
our  reason,  we  must  reject  it;  we  cannot  help  it. 
That  did  not,  could  not,  come  direct  from  God, 
but  came  through  fallible  men,  the  framework  and 
the  cord  of  whose  harp  were  constructed  after  the 
fashion  of  their  day,  and  could  not  sound  perfect 
music.  Reason  prefers  our  school  text -book  to 
our  Bible  on  matters  of  geology  and  astronomy, 
sifts  Bible  history  by  comparison  with  contem- 
porary records  recovered  from  the  sands  and 
clay  of  ancient  empires;  and  reason  it  is  that 
judges  the  teachings  of  Jesus  to  be  superior  to  the 
sacrificial   cult   of   Leviticus,   or  the  cursings   of 


SUM   OF  THE   WHOLE   MATTER    323 

Ezekiel  and  Amos.  Otir  light  is  better  than  theirs, 
for  our  reason  has  more  knowledge,  more  experi- 
ence, on  which  to  rest. 

The  best  human  reason — I  think  I  do  not  err — 
whether  it  looks  outward  or  inward,  finds  God. 
He  is  in  nature  about  us;  he  is  in  the  reason 
within  us.  It  is  not  simply  that  we  wish  to  find 
God,  but  we  find  him  whether  we  wish  it  or  not. 
Because  things  are,  therefore  something  always 
was,  self -existent,  existing  from  the  necessity  of 
its  own  being;  something,  matter  or  mind,  or 
both,  filling  the  vacuity  of  space,  out  of  infinite 
ether  creating  finite  atoms  and  worlds,  doing  it 
purposely,  intelligently,  with  infinite  power  and 
boundless  wisdom.  We  find  evidence — we  can 
hardly  be  mistaken — not  only  of  creative  power 
but  of  constant  anticipative  foresight,  looking  for- 
ward through  processes  of  development  to  the 
higher  and  highest  forms  of  life  and  intelligence, 
to  man;  as  if  there  were  a  Superior,  a  Supreme 
Power  which  guided  the  created  world.  So,  in 
the  beginning  God;  and  so  God  through  all  the 
processes  of  creative  evolution;  a  God  not  only 
boundless  in  might  and  wisdom,  but  boundlessly 
good,  his  laws  imposed  on  man  as  good  as  they 
are  wise,  as  beneficent  as  they  are  stern. 

To  err  about  the  laws  of  nature  or  of  God  is 
unfortunate,  and  may  be  calamitous;  to  disobey 
them  wilfully  is  wrong.  Our  fallible  reason  may 
err  as  to  these  laws,  or  as  to  facts  of  profane  or 


324      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

sacred  history,  but  if  one's  belief  is  based,  though 
wrong,  on  the  evidence  accessible  to  him,  it  is 
only  of  secondary  importance  to  him,  because  the 
error  is  intellectual  and  does  not  affect  his  moral 
character;  and  moral  excellence  or  obliquity  is 
infinitely  more  important  than  rightness  or  wrong- 
ness  of  mere  belief.  Character  before  God  or  man 
depends  not  at  all  upon  what  we  believe,  but 
upon  what  we  do.  If  Abraham  believed  God  com- 
manded him  to  slay  his  son  as  a  sacrifice,  his  at- 
tempt to  do  it  was  an  act  of  supreme  virtue ;  but 
he  was  in  error,  for  it  is  impossible  that  a  good 
God  could  have  commanded  it.  It  is  not  su- 
premely important,  however  desirable,  that  any 
single  one  of  our  beliefs  in  religion  should  be  cor- 
rect, not  even  our  beHef  in  God;  but  if  we  try 
to  live  up  to  the  rule  of  duty,  which  is  love,  we 
shall  be  acceptable  to  God  whether  we  know  any- 
thing about  him  or  not;  and  we  shall  not  be  ac- 
ceptable to  him,  no  matter  how  correct  our  knowl- 
edge of  him,  if  love  be  wanting.  Theology  may 
be  the  queen  of  sciences,  but  it  is  all  a  matter  of 
opinion  or  belief  based  on  evidence,  as  to  the  value 
and  bearing  of  which  good  men  may  differ.  It  is 
a  noble  study,  worth  giving  one's  best  thought  to, 
but  the  enforcement  upon  one's  soul  of  the  obliga- 
tion of  duty  until  it  is  natural  to  do  right  and  im- 
possible to  do  wrong — here  is  task,  here  is  primacy. 
For  the  most  important  of  our  beliefs,  if  not 
absolutely  essential,  is  our  common  belief  in  God, 


SUM   OF  THE  WHOLE   MATTER    325 

which  involves  beHef  in  the  immortal  soul  and 
the  futxire  life.  This  allows  hope  and  impresses 
duty  to  live  such  a  life  of  goodness  as  will  make 
the  transition  happy  into  the  future  life. 

Yet,  as  it  appears  to  me,  our  purpose  and  aim 
should  be  to  love  and  cultivate  goodness  for  its 
own  sake,  because  it  is  good,  rather  than  because 
it  will  secure  happiness  and  avoid  misery  in  the 
future  life.  In  the  answer  to  the  first  question 
in  the  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism,  ''man's 
chief  end"  may  be  "to  glorify  God,"  but  it  is 
hardly  ''to  enjoy  him  forever";  however,  that 
may  be  the  result.  To  glorify  God  is  very  nearly 
the  same  thing  as  to  magnify  goodness,  for  God 
is  infinite  goodness.  That  is  his  ruling  quality. 
To  be  utterly,  totally  good,  loving,  helpful,  self- 
sacrificing,  good  as  the  holy  God  is  good,  to  do 
justly,  to  love  mercy,  this  is  to  walk  humbly  be- 
fore God,  and  this  is  "man's  chief  end,"  and  has 
the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is  and  of  that  to 
come. 

I  cannot  quite  agree  with  those  who  talk  much 
of  "coming  back  to  Christ"  as  if  it  were  a  new 
discovery  of  the  age.  It  is  well  to  find  in  Christ 
a  revelation  of  God,  also  inestimable,  teaching 
and  ex.ample.  But  God  is  primary,  not  Jesus, 
as  Paul  himself  would  teach  us,  when  he  says  that 
in  the  end  Christ  will  give  up  the  kingdom  to  the 
Father.  God  is  quite  as  loving  as  Jesus.  He 
holds  no  anger  to  be  appeased.    His  fatherly  love 


326      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND   WHY 

can  hardly  need  any  sacrifice  to  remove  his  anger. 
His  attitude  to  us  is  that  of  a  father,  not  of  a 
jealous  judge  who  rules  under  law  which  infallibly 
exacts  penalty  for  every  offense.  I  cannot  but 
believe  that  modern  theology  has  made  too  much 
of  the  Atonement,  much  more  than  the  Bible 
makes  of  it  under  the  figures  either  of  sacrifice 
or  redemption.  With  Paul  the  great  thing  was 
the  resurrection,  more  than  the  Atonement.  He 
makes  much,  to  be  sure,  of  the  Atonement,  that 
is,  Christ's  death  for  us,  but  it  is  always  huper, 
for,  in  our  behalf,  not  anti,  instead  of,  in  sub- 
stitution. We  know  certainly,  beyond  historic 
doubt,  that  Jesus  has  revealed  to  us  God,  our 
Father,  and  the  rule  of  life  in  the  spirit,  not  in 
any  forms  or  rituals,  and  the  eternal  life;  also 
that  his  teaching  of  God  and  duty  has  been  of 
mighty  saving  influences;  and  that  is  enough; 
and  if  there  be  more  in  the  counsels  of  God  that 
made  his  death  especially  important,  because 
otherwise  "die  he  or  justice  must,"  in  ''rigid 
satisfaction,  death  for  death,"  this  we  may  prop- 
erly leave  in  the  counsels  of  God,  who  only  knows 
where  our  merits  and  our  frailties  in  equal  trust 
repose,  the  bosom  of  our  Father  and  our  God. 

There  are  those  who  will  see  a  religious  danger 
in  the  slipping  away  from  the  former  views  as 
to  the  supreme  authority  of  the  written  Word  of 
God.  There  is  such  danger.  There  are  those 
who  will  conclude  that  if  the  outposts  of  faith 


SUM   OF  THE   WHOLE   MATTER    327 

are  withdrawn  the  whole  fortress  is  lost.  Their 
alarm  we  cannot  help.  If  they  have  had  the  es- 
sence of  Christianity,  the  love  of  God  and  man, 
their  own  faith  will  not  perish.  I  think  a  clearer 
understanding  of  what  Christianity  really  is, 
and  the  removal  of  its  dubious  theological  de- 
fenses added  to  the  simple  gospel,  as  the  Jews 
''fenced"  the  Law,  will  help  not  a  few  to  choose 
the  Christian  life.  And  at  any  rate  we  ought  not 
to  hesitate  to  seek  and  proclaim  what  our  best 
study  believes  to  be  true,  out  of  any  fear  that 
the  result  will  endanger  our  faith  or  that  of  others. 
Truth  will  prevail,  and  truth  will  be  safe. 

I  find  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  therefore 
where  I  would  not  expect  it,  the  clearest,  the 
most  philosophical,  explanation  of  the  transition 
by  which  the  man  who  has  sinned  passes  into  the 
divine  life.  In  vision  Isaiah  saw  Jehovah  on  his 
throne,  and  he  heard  the  seraphim  about  the 
throne  cry,  "Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  God  of 
hosts."  That  is,  being  interpreted,  he  was  over- 
whelmed by  the  thought  of  the  infinite  sanctity 
of  God,  in  whom  holiness  is  supreme  over  every 
other  attribute.  He  had  a  view  of  how  beautiful 
and  how  awful  goodness  is,  and  of  the  God  who 
loves  and  will  support  and  crown  goodness,  and 
who  hates  and  will  oppose  and  crush  wrong. 
The  effect  on  him  of  this  vision  of  the  holy  God 
was  to  make  Isaiah  look  inward  on  himself  and 
see  his  own  failure  to  meet  the  faultless  glory  of 


328      WHAT  I  BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

such  holiness,  and  he  cried,  "Woe  is  me,  for  I  am 
undone,  for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I 
dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips ;  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  the  King,  the  Lord  of  Hosts." 
That,  being  interpreted,  is  that  a  serious  considera- 
tion of  the  infinite  beauty  and  majesty  of  the 
goodness  of  God  stirs  the  self-convicted  soul  to 
confess  and  repent  of  its  sins,  for  ''the  goodness 
of  God  leadeth  to  repentance."  So  repentance  is 
the  second  stage  in  the  experience  of  conversion. 
The  vision  of  Isaiah  continues:  "Then  flew  one 
of  the  seraphim  imto  me,  having  a  live  coal  in 
his  hand  which  he  had  taken  with  the  tongs  from 
off  the  altar,  and  he  laid  it  upon  my  mouth,  say- 
ing, *Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy  lips,  and  thine 
iniquity  is  taken  away,  and  thy  sin  purged.'" 
This  third  step  follows  and  must  follow,  if  God 
is  good,  the  pardoning  word  heard  and  joyfully 
accepted.  This  we  call  faith,  faith  in  the  present 
and  instant  love  and  forgiveness  of  God.  The 
Old  Testament  speaks  of  the  coal  from  the  altar 
of  sacrifice,  but  the  New  Testament  says  that 
"the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  his  Son  cleanseth  us 
from  all  sin";  yet  it  is  all  faith  in  God's  mercy, 
through  which  we,  as  well  as  the  elders,  obtain 
a  good  report.  But  this  third  step  does  not  con- 
clude the  vision  or  the  experience  of  the  forgiven 
soul;  for  the  prophet  continues:  "And  I  heard 
a  voice  saying,  Whom  shall  I  send  and  who  will 
go  for  us  ?    Then  said  I,  Here  am  I ;   Lord,  send 


SUM   OF  THE  WHOLE   MATTER    329 

me."  The  soul  that  has  a  convincing  sense  of 
the  splendor  of  the  spotless  goodness  of  God, 
that  has  then  repented  of  sin,  and  then  has  the 
assurance  of  faith  in  the  forgiveness  and  love  of 
God,  cannot  fail  to  hear  God's  call  and  the  cry 
of  a  suffering  and  erring  world  for  help  on  errands 
of  mercy.  He  will  give  himself  to  fellow-service 
with  Christ;  and  this  is  the  final  and  completing 
stage  in  the  process  of  conversion,  what  we  call 
consecration,  which  is  love  regnant  if  not  yet 
perfected  in  the  soul,  love  sacrificial  and  con- 
queror over  life  or  death,  the  fairest  word,  whether 
for  man  or  angel,  in  the  bright  lexicon  of  Chris- 
tian life. 

I  have  used  the  word  conversion,  a  word  not 
soon  to  go  out  of  use.  It  designates  the  critical 
experience  which  every  one  must  have  possessed 
who  would  live  a  worthy  life.  It  has  all  these 
elements  of  religious  experience,  the  vision  of  the 
beauty  of  goodness,  sorrow  for  the  wrong  that 
has  been  done,  assurance  of  the  loving  mercy  of 
God,  and  the  will  to  live  the  life  which  goodness 
and  the  God  of  Goodness  require.  One  need  not 
know  when  the  will  so  to  live  becomes  first  con- 
scious; it  may  have  grown  in  the  child  through 
his  earliest  education,  or  it  may  have  come  later 
through  a  deep  conflict  and  convulsion  of  the 
soul;  but  at  some  time  it  must  begin  to  rule  the 
man.  One  element  or  another  may  predominate 
in  the  experience,  perhaps  an  overwhelming  con- 


330      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

viction  of  sin,  with  a  sudden  light  driving  away 
the  gloom;  or  it  may  be  that  a  sense  of  the  love 
of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  will  so  flood  the  soul  that 
faith  is  swallowed  up  in  victory;  or  it  may  be 
that  a  serious  and  yet  passionless  resolve  may 
settle  quietly  on  the  soul  to  live  a  worthy  and 
useful  life — whatever  the  form  of  the  experience 
may  be  it  will  finally  settle  into  the  conscious 
determination  to  the  love  and  service  of  Being  in 
General,  that  is,  to  God  and  man.  And  such  a 
will,  shown  in  life,  is  the  crown  of  life,  whether  it 
appears  under  the  Christian  dispensation,  or  the 
older  Jewish,  or  blossoms  in  the  less  favored  soil 
of  some  pagan  faith  or  some  dubitant  philosophy. 
Why  do  not  preachers  and  Sunday-school 
teachers  understand  how  to  make  it  clear  to  their 
hearers  or  their  scholars  just  what  it  is  thus  to 
become  a  Christian  ?  It  is  the  most  important 
thing  to  be  taught  in  a  Bible  school  or  a  theological 
seminary ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  I  was  properly 
taught  it.  My  experience  was  that  of  many,  I 
believe,  who  have  been  told  they  ought  to  be- 
come Christians,  and  who  wish  it,  but  who  have 
not  been  told  just  exactly,  in  plain  terms,  what 
they  must  do  about  it.  They  get  the  idea  that 
they  must  wait  till  it  comes;  or  when  they  have 
asked,  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"  they  have 
heard  the  blind  answer,  ''Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  But  what 
is  it,  they  have  asked,  to  believe  on  the  Lord 


SUM   OF  THE   WHOLE   MATTER    331 

Jesus,  and  how  shall  I  go  about  it  ?  I  think  that 
answer  about  the  most  unintelligible  that  can  be 
given  in  these  days.  It  had  a  more  definite 
meaning  when  Paul  said  it. 

I  remember  how  the  importance  of  having  a 
clear  answer  to  that  question  was  first  impressed 
upon  me.  It  was  in  the  first  year  after  my  gradu- 
ation from  the  theological  seminary  that,  shortly 
before  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War,  I  had  charge 
of  two  churches  in  the  troubled  State  of  Kansas. 
The  whole  population  of  the  village  where  I 
lived  was  employed  in  cutting  Itmiber  from  the 
neighboring  Indian  reserve.  One  day  the  older 
Methodist  minister  and  myself  were  suddenly 
called  to  visit  a  man  who  had  been  hurt  by  the 
falling  of  a  tree  and  had  but  a  few  hours  to  live. 
He  was  presimiably  of  the  reckless,  profane  class, 
but  yet  no  unbeliever,  and  desperately  wanted  to 
make  his  peace  with  God  during  the  very  brief 
remaining  period  of  probation.  The  older  minister 
talked  and  prayed  with  him,  but  it  did  not  seem 
to  me  that  he  had  given  any  clear  instruction. 
Then  it  came  my  turn,  and  the  best  I  knew  I 
said,  but  I  went  away  sad  at  heart,  for  I  felt  that 
I  had  not  said  that  something  that  ought  to  have 
been  said. 

What  should  be  said  ?  That,  I  think,  which 
should  be  said  to  a  little  innocent  child  that 
knows  very  little  of  sin,  and  that  same  which 
should  be  said  to  the  experienced  man  of  this 


332      WHAT  I   BELIEVE  AND  WHY 

selfish  world.  The  child  should  be  told  that 
God  is  good,  that  God  loves  good  children,  that 
God  will  love  him  if  he  is  good,  that  Jesus  was 
good  and  loved  little  children,  and  that  he  died 
to  help  them  be  good  and  go  to  heaven ;  and  then 
the  child  should  be  urged  and  persuaded — and 
the  persuasion  will  not  be  difficult — to  promise 
before  God  that  he  will  try  as  long  as  he  lives  to 
be  good,  to  please  God,  for  God  will  love  him  and 
help  him.  That  is  all  that  is  essential,  but  it 
must  be  followed  up,  that  the  purpose  may  not 
be  forgotten,  and  that  goodness  may  grow  into 
a  habit.  That  is  all  that  is  needed  for  the  older 
people  that  they  may  be  converted  and  become 
as  little  children.  I  should  have  told  that  lum- 
berman— I  hope  I  did  substantially  if  imperfectly 
— that  he  knew,  and  God  knew,  that  he  had  not 
lived  a  good  and  pure  life,  but  that  God  is  not 
resentful  but  very  merciful  and  forgiving;  and 
that  before  he  went  to  meet  his  God  he  should 
follow  me  in  a  prayer  of  repentance  and  in  the 
pledge  before  God  that  if  his  life  were  preserved, 
or  in  the  brief  fraction  of  it  left,  he  would  forsake 
sin  and  live  in  such  a  way  as  would  please  God, 
and  that  if  he  did  this  earnestly,  he  might  now 
die  happy  in  the  faith  that  the  Heavenly  Father 
who  loves  the  returning  prodigal  will  forgive  him 
and  receive  him  even  as  the  penitent  thief  was 
received  into  Paradise. 

That  is  all  I  know.    It  is  the  simple  gospel  of 


SUM   OF  THE  WHOLE   MATTER    ss^ 

Jesus  Christ  as  he  taught  it  to  sinful  men  and 
women  who  heard  him  gladly.  And  I  believe 
that  such  faithful  teaching  to  our  children  will 
give  us  purer  and  more  intelligent  Christians  than 
will  be  gathered  in  by  the  excitement  of  septennial 
revivals.  The  revival  is  not  bad  when  needed, 
but  how  much  better  that  quietness  of  thought 
which  offers  the  prayer: 

"Oh  give  to  me,  made  lowly  wise 
The  spirit  of  self-sacrifice; 
The  confidence  of  reason  give, 
And  in  the  light  of  truth  thy  bondman  let  me  live." 


Princeton  Theological ,  Seminarv  U^rari" 


i    1012  01208  2469 


DATE  DUE 

F^!N«H«i 

*P« 

ltei.Ma.Ai.7S 

GAYLORD 

PRINTEDIN  U.S.A. 

ii  uui                              \ 

1     u         i 

1 

